Maestri - Masters of Italian Design | Museum of Applied Arts

One of the world’s most important design museums, the Triennale Design Museum in Milan is presenting part of its huge collection in Hungary. The Maestri exhibition showcases selected items of the Museum’s permanent collection at the breathtaking interior of Museum of Applied Arts. By trying to summarize the ouvre of 21 legendary Italian designers, it features items that have both become cult objects and symbols of Design Made in Italy. Chair Superleggera by Gio Ponti, Arco floor lamp by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Valentine typewriter by Ettore Sottsass have all become symbols of an era – and are only a few of the 100 legendary design objects on view at the Maestri exhibiton. The exhibition is complemented by a guided tour and other programs on the 5th of October.

Introduction by the curator:

There was a time when objects had no identifiable creators. You simply did not know who designed and made them. We did not even know who to thank for the objects we used day by day. A chair was simply a chair, nothing more.

20th century design wanted to shatter this concept, giving identity to the most mundane objects by naming their designer and creator.

Design, which balances between concept and practical creation, and which for a long time tried to create a common language uniting planning, production, sale and use, marked a high point of development in Italian society and the period of modernism.

The exhibit focuses on the last fifty years of Italian design, by introducing the most significant designers and their products, which determined this period. Each of the 21 ’Maestro’ in the exhibition is represented by five objects, in roughly chronological order, thereby guiding visitors through the history of objects, made up of words and things, concepts and objects, innovative prototypes and articles speaking a new visual language.

The structure of the exhibition enables visitors not only to follow the path of objects and the ideas that led to them, but also to understand the relationship of each designer to the objects they created. This is facilitated by the videos placed at the center of each display, where the masters talk about their approach and relationship to their objects.

Naturally, not all representatives of Italian design can be featured in this exhibition. But all of whom we can call Maestri are included – not only this who had their own school and followers, or who educated pupils at notable institutions, but also because each of them worked with such novel ideas, which became a vehicle for progress in the work of future generations.

Silvana Annicchiarico, Director of the Triennale Design Museum