When you say Milan, you say Design. From the first Italian thermoelectric plant to home furnishings, from autos to the fashion boom in the 1980s, the city is known for its manufacturing excellence. However, there is a date that marks the start of an acceleration of creativity in the city. It is 28 August 1954 when the tenth Triennial is inaugurated, the expo where art mixes with daily life and the need for functionality - it is here that modern design is born. The war had ended only a short while before and an Italian miracle is about to start. Milan is the nerve centre of a new trend which encourages industry to embrace a functional aesthetic. This brings about the birth of the legendary objects of the era - from the collaboration of Ettore Sottsass with Olivetti, of Gio Ponti with Cassina and Venini, of Munari and Mari with Danese… And in 1954, the Premio Compasso d’Oro ADI, the most important prize in the field of Design worldwide is created. It was Ponti who proposed shining a light on the quality of the Made in Italy label in a competition and, for any serious designer, the Compasso represented an obligatory step. And for this, the ADI Design Museum, being inaugurated this year in town, readies itself to become a pilgrimage destination for those wanting to explore the history of the best of Italian Design.
A site-specific installation, conceived for the space of the agora, and which at the same time is a preview of the exhibition that Adrian Paci will hold at Mudec next Spring.
Fragile and magnetic, a young woman stares out at the spectator beyond the canvas - not even its creator could pull himself away from the portrait of Concha Emiliana de Ossa, today in the collec-tion of the Pinacoteca of Brera.
