Milan’s ADI Design Museum – Compasso d’Oro was inaugurated on May 25 by Italian culture minister Dario Franeschini and Milan mayor Beppe Sala.
“It is always a day of celebration when a new museum opens and even more [of a] celebration if a museum so projected towards innovation, so important and so beautiful, opens,” said Franceschini.
Compasso d’Oro is an industrial design award, founded in Italy in 1954. It is awarded by the Italian Association for Industrial Design (ADI).
“It is truly an extraordinary place, which collects the history of design and the foundation of the Compasso d’Oro,” Franceschini added.
The ADI Design Museum is managed by the ADI Compasso d’Oro Collection Foundation and showcases the Compasso d’Oro award collection.
According to Wanted in Milan, the ADI Design Museum will focus on the aesthetic, social, industrial and economic evolution of Italian design.
As well as the permanent collection of more than 2,000 pieces, the ADI Design Museum includes spaces for temporary exhibitions. Sala described it as “the icing on the cake of Milanese excellence”.
In addition, ‘Compasso d’Oro, measuring the world’ is a permanent installation curated and designed by Origoni Steiner and located outside the ADI Design Museum.
Explore the evolution of Italian design
The museum was originally set to open in June 2020, but was delayed due to COVID-19. Owned by the city of Milan, the museum building was given to ADI for 35 years. It was renovated by architects Giancarlo Perotta and Massimo C Bodini.
Elsewhere, Milan Ingegneria has been awarded a contract to create a $22 million remote-controlled, retractable floor for the Colosseum arena in Rome.
Franceschini said the ambitious project will “aid the the conservation and safeguarding of the archaeological structures while getting back to the original image of the Colosseum and restoring its character as a complex stage set”.
Images: ADI Design Museum
