The ADI Design Museum on its way in Milan!

History meets innovation in a unique cultural project

2020 will see the opening of the first museum exclusively dedicated to design. It will be one of the largest in Europe and an international benchmark for all the creative, productive, economic, professional and social activities that revolve around design. The core of the museum will be the historical collection of the most prestigious award in Italian design, the ADI Compasso d’Oro ADI, which will be truly representative of the entire Italian Design System. The ADI Compasso d’Oro Design Museum will seek to adopt an extremely innovative approach, so it will also feature leading-edge digital resources designed to offer the general public a fully engaging experience, and it will be a valuable resource for students from design schools worldwide.

A formative experience and a special cultural centre

With a surface area of 5135 square metres, 3000 of which reserved for exhibition space, the museum will contain over two thousand pieces from the Compasso d’Oro collection, with new acquisitions arriving after every edition of the award, making up a permanent exhibition featuring the objects that have received the award from 1954 up to the present. The museum will host themed exhibitions and will have rooms able to host work meetings and public events. In addition, the premises will host not only the museum, but also the offices of the ADI and the ADI foundation, meeting rooms, the library and the historical archive of the ADI (containing over 60 years of historical documents on Italian design), a bookshop and a food area. This splendid cultural centre will be open to the general public, actively engaging visitors and teaching them about design, based on the historical collection of the ADI Compasso d’Oro. This innovative resource will illustrate the story of the works displayed, offering both a formative and an emotional experience.

In the heart of Italy’s most cosmopolitan city

The ADI museum will be housed in a former industrial building measuring 5135 square metres, located between Via Ceresio and Via Bramante, obtained thanks to a joint venture between Milan town council (which has invested come six million euros), the Lombardy Region, the Italian State and the Foundation (ready to contribute two million). The architects Migliore+Servetto with Italo Lupi have won the tender to design the museum, and have this to say about the project: “Our concept will resemble a sort of modern-day ark, ready to welcome all the “species” that make up Italian quality design. Our idea is for a museum with a story to tell, able to make the visitor an active part of the experience, by creating relationships rather than exhibition spaces”. A living, breathing, continually evolving space set not only to boost cultural tourism, but also to act as an educational resource.

A design award Made in Italy.

The Compasso d’Oro is an important accolade awarded by the ADI, the Italian Industrial Design Association, with the aim of recognising and promoting quality Italian design. Each year, the award is given to companies who have succeeded in creating distinctive, original products, 100% representative of the history of Italian industrial design and symbolise the concept of Italian-crafted excellence. In 2018, for publication in the ADI Design Index for the year, the ADI Permanent Design Observatory selected Ceramiche Coem’s SHELF project, created by designer Paolo Benevelli. SHELF is a furnishing product in porcelain stoneware, which can be used not only in its traditional form as a wall covering, but also as a versatile horizontal shelf: an innovative solution made possible by the special process applied to the full-body porcelain stoneware to create an unusual L shape. The endless variability offered by combining two or more elements means that a huge range of formal and functional configurations can be created, opening up to an impressive series of options: bookcases, shelves, display shelves, etc., suitable for all sorts of settings. This special furnishing element had already also won the ADI Ceramics & Bathroom Design Award in 2017 for the innovative, strikingly original process used. SHELF then also received an accolade at the GOOD DESIGN AWARDS® 2018, in the FLOOR&WALL COVERINGS category. Founded in Chicago in 1950, the GOOD DESIGN Award is a prestigious, long-established award for the best industrial design project, presented for sustainable design, exceptional functionality and distinctive style (www.good-designawards.com). SHELF is an innovative, modular system that defines new geometries for the ceramic dimension, and we hope to see it in the new museum Milan is already awaiting with bated breath.