Compasso d’oro Carrier Award

A small artisan’s workshop for the manufacture of wood burning stoves founded by Antonio Zanussi, it began to expand in 1933 with the creation of the Rex brand and the launch of the Patent wood burning stove in 1935, which was exported to Austria and Germany. After the war, the founder’s sons, Guido and Lino transformed the company into an international ‘white goods’ brand, which from 1960 onwards also produced televisions. From 1963, as a joint-stock company with increasingly large international shareholdings, it was eventually incorporated into the Electrolux group.

Graduated in Milan in 1964, he travelled throughout Great Britain and the United States. From 1971 he collaborated with Richard Rogers on the design of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1977, with Gianfranco Franchini). He founded the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in 1981 with offices in Genoa, Paris and Osaka, which resulted among other s in the creation of the Porto Antico in Genova (1992), Kansai airport (Osaka, 1994), the reconstruction of Potsdamer Platz (Berlin, 2000), the Parco della Musica Auditorium (Rome, 2002) and the viaduct over the Polcevera (Genova, 2020).

Painter and businessman, he worked in 1957 as an image consultant on the foundation of Abet Laminati, placing design as a link between communication, research and marketing. In 1963 he created the Architects Consulting Group (Ponti, Magistretti, Romano, Caccia Dominioni and Casati) within the company and invited Ettore Sottsass to collaborate. He then worked with the Renault group on innovation, the Atelier Mendini on decor and with Fiorucci Dxing (with Giannino Malossi) on fashion usage.

Heir to the publishing house that produced the works of the art historian Bernard Berenson in Florence, at the end of the 1950s it relocated to Milan and specialized in art and architecture publishing, of which in the mid-1960s it was the leader in Italy, expanding to include the theme of design. With a catalogue that in the 1980s offered over 1,500 titles, in the 1990s it opened autonomous branches throughout the country. Part of the Mondadori group since 1994, it has built up a network of bookstores and services located inside some of the most significant Italian museums.

Founded by the designer Enrico Astori, his sister Antonia Astori (designer) and his wife Adelaide Acerbi (images and communication), its hallmark was the integration of the production of quality furniture items designed by great designers with distribution and communication. It made his debut with the Driade1 wardrobe (Antonia Astori 1968), transformed in 1972 into Oikos, an independent division. Since the 1980s, it has been open to international collaborations (Philippe Starck, David Chipperfield, John Pawson, Tokujin Yoshioka since 2002) and has become well-known for experimenting with new forms and new living solutions.

General Secretary of ADI since 1972, she was its organizational and proactive heart and soul during the management of the Compasso d’Oro and the association’s national and international exhibitions, including 100 designers, set up at the Milan Triennale in 1984 to mark the ICSID International Council of Societies of Industrial Design conference. She also worked on the relocation and transfer of the association’s Milan office from via Clerici to via Montenapoleone, and above all the tireless interweaving of relationships with institutions, companies, sponsors and supporters, demonstrating, according to the Compasso d’Oro jury, “constant dedication to the Award itself and thus to the general spreading and promotion of industrial design “.