ADI Design Museum in Milan offers a tribute to the pioneering role of Italian design

What makes Italian design a force to reckon with? For more than a century, why has Italy in particular, produced widely renowned and accepted everyday objects, fuelled by the tenets of architecture, design and art? Deceptively simple yet artisanally engineered forms with oft-experimental materiality exceedingly show up from the Italian creative circuit, reinforcing the country's mark as one where everything lives and breathes design. No wonder that Milan became the mecca hosting the world's biggest and the most popular annual design fair—the Salone del Mobile, Milan Design Week and their allied events.

At the ADI Design Museum in Milan, an illustrious space home to the historic collection of the Compasso d’Oro projects, an ongoing design exhibition spotlights 'the energy and romantic drive that have always guided Italian design'. Best of Both Worlds: ITALY. Art and Design in Italy 1915 – 2025, curated under the creative helm of Italian designer and writer Stefano Casciani brings forth unpublished written and visual materials that hope to 'reveal the design thinking behind Italian design and its constant dialogue with art'. The showcase on view from April 1 - June 15, 2025, is presented under Fuorisalone this year (of which STIR is a media partner), and brings its discerning audience a stimulating repository of objects, books, artefacts, furniture designs, artworks and decorative lighting pieces.

In tune with the Fuorisalone theme this year titled Connected Worlds, the exhibition with its archival nature of presentation chronicles "a culmination of many years of studies, research and experimentation between art and design that—from the historical avant-garde to the present day—many of us have undertaken to revolutionise the image of the object, no longer just a functional instrument but a protagonist of visual culture," as per Casciani. The spatial scheme follows the demarcation of seven key areas, each unfolding 'like a story moving through pivotal eras in Italian design'. Conceived by Piero Lissoni/GraphX, the white walls and dividing partitions of the space find an animated touch in the disposition of colourful lamps, tectonically-inspired chairs, wriggly mirror pieces and monochromatic domestic artefacts.

Opening with the Futurist gaze and its manifestations in the industrial realm where works of Italian design maestros Carlo Mollino, Bruno Munari and Enzo Mari take centrestage, the show segues into the Pop era showing the contributions of luminaries such as 1960s design icon Joe Colombo, whose works celebrate the intersection of Milanese jazz and design. Next up is a peek into the Radical movement of the late 60s, unpacking the relationship between art, fashion and independent design through the lenses of visionary designers such as Alessandro Mendini and Ettore Sottsass.

Further, Best of Both Worlds: ITALY. Art and Design in Italy 1915 – 2025 expands into the transition of design in the digital age and how it took up a sculptural narrative, through the voices of designers such as Gaetano Pesce and Nathalie Du Pasquier. "Various sections of the exhibition connect crucial themes for reinventing the object, from Abstraction to Neo-Modernism, culminating in today's low-cost collecting trend," states the press release.

Speaking of the number of contributions and the major relevance of the showcase, Casciani observes, "Credit is due to the ADI Design Museum, to the manufacturers, and all the lenders for grasping the extraordinary opportunity of this major exhibition to inform the widest possible audience about that refined and utopian conversation between the arts and design that makes the Italian experience unique."

Projects on display also include works by luminaries such as Achille Castiglioni, Andrea Branzi, Gio Ponti, Aldo Rossi and Riccardo Dalisi, to more contemporary figures such as Patricia Urquiola, Philippe Starck, Paola Navone, Piero Lissoni and Michele De Lucchi, to name a few.

'Best of Both Worlds: ITALY. Art and Design in Italy 1915 – 2025' is on view from April 1 - June 15, 2025, at the ADI Design Museum in Milan, Italy.

Keep up with STIR's coverage of Milan Design Week 2025, where we spotlight the most compelling exhibitions, presentations and installations from top studios, designers and brands. Dive into the highlights of Euroluce 2025 and explore all the design districts—Fuorisalone, 5Vie, Brera, Isola, Durini, and beyond—alongside the faceted programme of Salone del Mobile.Milano this year.