Marking the centenary of his birth, the exhibition celebrates one of the leading figures of the golden Italian design season: Achille Castiglioni, an internationally renowned Italian architect with a visionary capacity, who created 290 design objects and 484 installations as the field of experimentation and innovation.

Thanks to the collaboration with Fondazione Achille Castiglioni, the exhibition focuses on the great directorial skills that emerge from Castiglioni’s work. Sketches, drawings, models, videos, original objects and prototypes highlight the perfect combination of simplicity and irony that characterized the depth of his ideas and his ability to build spaces in close collaboration with graphic designers, in particular the Swiss designer Max Huber.

The exhibition is curated and designed by Ico Migliore, Mara Servetto (Migliore+Servetto Architects) and Italo Lupi, in partnership for the curatorship with Nicoletta Ossanna Cavadini. It intends to highlight the role of the temporary exhibition as an extraordinarily important instrument of cultural and commercial communication, which has long been central to the tradition of creativity. The outsize, the kinetic, the allegory, the sequence, the readymade and the graphic sign were just some of the key elements, recurrent in his projects, which are highlighted in the exhibition layout.

From the memorable installations of the Pavilions for the Rai, Eni and Montecatini to the masterful projects for culture, innovation and product display, the figure of Achille Castiglioni clearly emerges with his flair for conceiving the mise-en-scène as film direction. Combining experimentation with rationality, Achille Castiglioni managed to unite simplicity and irony with close attention to the use of technology and new materials. His projects were timeless, continuously relevant to the changes in contemporary life.

The exhibition is interleaved with examples of his product designs, such as Arco, Aoy, Noce and Gibigiana, the Allunaggio garden seat, the Mezzadro or Sella stool, Dry cutlery, the Wall Clockand Record clock and other design objects that express the master’s remarkable aptitude, capable of seeing things in a unique way and translating the concepts experimented with in his exhibition installations into the field of design.

Finally, the artistic and cultural panorama outlined is completed with importantcontributions by 22 world-famous graphic designers – Alberto Bianda, Mauro Bubbico, Giorgio Camuffo, Rosa Casamento + Nicola Munari, Paolo Cavalli + Alfio Mazzei, Pierluigi Cerri, Alessandro Costariol, Francesco Dondina, Milton Glaser, Steven Guarnaccia, Aoi Huber Kono, Felix Humm, Michele Jannuzzi, Sergio Menichelli, Armando Milani, Mario Piazza, Massimo Pitis, Emiliano Ponzi, Guido Scarabottolo, Leonardo Sonnoli, Paolo Tassinari and Heinz Waibl – for the occasion called on to create each one graphic poster that embodies the genius and rigorous imagination of the beloved designer.

Designed by Ico Migliore and Mara Servetto / Migliore+Servetto Architects
Photography by Carola Migliore, Leo Torri, Guido Santinelli