The ADI Design Museum, inaugurated last May 25 in Piazza Compasso d'Oro in Milan, is a tale about the history of design. Its path takes the visitor back in time, involving and enchanting those who are immersed in it.

Inside the former industrial building with large windows a row of sofas surmounted by a majestic white sail is placed in the center of the hall; home appliances, cars, clocks, chairs and tables, lamps, clothes and footwear on the sides. This is how ADI Design Museum is presented. The museum is founded by ADI, Association for Industrial Design, which brings together designers, companies, researchers, teachers, critics, journalists around the themes of design as a cultural and economic phenomenon. Since 1958, the association also manages the Compasso d'Oro Award, the oldest award in Europe in the sector...

The ADI Design Museum, inaugurated last May 25 in Piazza Compasso d'Oro in Milan, is a tale about the history of design. Its path takes the visitor back in time, involving and enchanting those who are immersed in it.

Inside the former industrial building with large windows a row of sofas surmounted by a majestic white sail is placed in the center of the hall; home appliances, cars, clocks, chairs and tables, lamps, clothes and footwear on the sides. This is how ADI Design Museum is presented. The museum is founded by ADI, Association for Industrial Design, which brings together designers, companies, researchers, teachers, critics, journalists around the themes of design as a cultural and economic phenomenon. Since 1958, the association also manages the Compasso d'Oro Award, the oldest award in Europe in the sector.
  Thanks to the commitment of the President Luisa Bocchietto, in office from 2008 to 2014, and of the Steering Committee composed of Giovanna Talocci, Alessandro Sarfatti, Roberto Marcatti, Giovanni Cutolo, in 2011 the City of Milan granted the ADI pavilion of 5000 square meters, intended to become the seat of the future museum and to realize a dream, which has become a reality today. "Il cucchiaio e la città" (The spoon and the city), the permanent collection curated by Beppe Finessi, is an exhibition path enveloping the public in a chorus of unique and different elements, arising wonder not only in design enthusiasts. Objects that we can take for granted today, because they are completely integrated into our daily lives, but at the time considered as revolutionary. They are grouped in a harmonious way, outlining a timeline that tells the history of Italian design, presenting the winners of all editions of the Compasso d'Oro award, from the Fifties to the present day. Inside every rectangular section, each one dedicated to a year and enclosed in brightly colored dividers, you can admire the winning object combined with complementary materials. The visitor has the feeling of entering a small room in which various types of documents are placed alongside the winners or hung on the walls, including the original drawings, sketches of designers, photographs, graphics, Italian magazines and newspapers that have helped spread the related projects around the world. An immersive experience that takes back in time those who visit the museum, guiding them in the present, to make a reflection on the evolutionary path of design, looking at future scenarios, such as the encounter between design and technology, electricity and robotics.
  At the end of Il cucchiaio e la città path, you can find the permanent exhibition "Manifesto alla Carriera. An homage of Italian graphics to the Masters of the Compasso d'Oro", a collective celebration that aims to pay homage to the best names in Italian design of the ‘900 and to underline their theoretical, visionary and social action.
Finally, among the temporary exhibitions, there is "Tessere la gioia" (Weaving joy) by Renata Bonfanti, textile designer who has created long hand-knotted and mechanical loom carpets, receiving the Compasso d'Oro award in 1962. The splendid textile works sometimes depict natural subjects such as landscapes and animals, sometimes geometric shapes, combining often contrasting colors that reach the observer’s heart, just like paintings.