Compasso d’oro Carrier Award

Strongly oriented towards research and innovation, Unifor designs and manufactures office systems designed to meet the requirements of an extremely demanding market. The design research and experimentation conducted by Unifor can be seen not only in the study of new products, but also in the evolution of existing ones: even the most innovative and tested proposals are in fact constantly subjected to updating and improvement processes. These qualifying aspects, which have always characterized Unifor’s activity, are clearly highlighted in its products, where the issues of comfort and environmental quality, together with the skilful and non-invasive use of technology are developed by the company through a series of innovative products. Specialized in the field of highly complex large scale installations, Unifor has consolidated a stable position in the market, with a dominant presence at an international level.

 

Born in Vigevano in 1926, he founded the Architetti Associati studio (1953-1968) with Vittorio Gregotti and Lodovico Meneghetti and then opened his own studio, dealing with architecture, urban planning and design. In the latter sector, he collaborated among others with the Acerbis, Driade, Heller New York, La Rinascente, Kartell, Raak Amsterdam, Rexite, Uchida Tokyo and Zanotta brands. His works are in the permanent collections of the MoMA in New York (the 537 Arteluce lamp) and the Victoria Museum in London (the Sheraton cabinet). He has participated in numerous Triennali di Milano and, in 1972, in the Italy: The New Domestic Landscape exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1988 he held the Materials Technology course at the Faculty of Architecture in Palermo. Member of ADI since 1960, he was a member of the Steering Committee (1966-1968, 1971-1973) and was its president (1982-1984). He won two Compasso d’Oro Awards in 1979 and 1991, and two honourable mentions in 1960 and 1970.

 

Founded by Carlo Petrini in 1986, Slow Food became an international association in 1989 and today, with the spread of the Terra Madre network, it has 100,000 members worldwide, national offices in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the United States, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and members in 130 countries. Slow Food means giving due importance to the pleasure linked to food, learning to enjoy the diversity of recipes and flavours, to recognize the variety of places of production and craftsmen and to respect the rhythms of the seasons and eating together. However there is a new sense of responsibility: a perspective that Slow Food has called eco-gastronomy, capable of combining respect and the study of food and wine culture with support for those in the world who work to defend agri-food biodiversity and convivial places that are part of the patrimony of material culture thanks to their historical, artistic or social value.

 

Design in Italian universities has developed significantly over the last twenty years. The Politecnico di Milano has contributed to this in a particular way, establishing in addition to its historical roots (consider the link between the university and some extraordinary figures in the history of design such as Gio Ponti, Franco Albini, Achille Castiglioni and Marco Zanuso) the first degree course in Industrial Design and subsequently, starting in 2002, the Faculty of Design, now known as the School of Design. This was due to the commitment of numerous individuals including Tomás Maldonado and Alberto Seassaro, first dean of the Faculty of Design. Design at the Politecnico di Milano is today an integrated system of skills that operates, between training and research, through its own structures such as the INDACO Department (Industrial Design, Arts, Communication and Fashion), with the Design Research Doctorate, the Laboratory System and the POLI.design Consortium. A meeting point for different cultures in constant dialogue with the professional and business worlds and with the main international research and training centers, design at the Politecnico has played a fundamental role in the creation of a point of reference scientific community in Milan.

 

Born in 1932 on the island of Reichenau, on Lake Constance, he trained as a typographer in Germany and Switzerland. From 1954 to 1958 he studied graphics in Munich and from 1960 to 1963 he worked as an independent designer in New York and San Francisco. In 1966 he founded the Design M company in Munich to produce his lamps and in 1989 he presented his non-commercial research into light at the Fondation Cartier pour l ‘art contemporain in Paris. In 1999 he collaborated with Issey Miyake. Among his numerous international awards are the Lucky Strike Designer Award (2000), the Georg Jensen Prize (Copenhagen, 2002), the Fourth Oribe Award (Japan, 2003) and the Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany (2010). He is Chevalier des arts et des lettres of the French Republic since 1986 and was appointed Royal Designer of Industry by the Royal Society of Arts in London (2005). He received an honorary degree from the Royal College of Art in London (2006) and in 2010 an anthology of his work – Complete with Bulb. Light by Ingo Maurer – was staged at the Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin.

 

Born in Novara in 1932, in the 1950s he began his research into visual perception, the psychology of vision and the programming of perceptual structures. An exponent of Programmed and Kinetic Art, in 1963 he coordinated the Nuova Tendenza group. At the same time, he began his career as a designer dealing with graphics and architecture and collaborating with Danese, Driade, Magis, Olivetti, Robots and Zanotta among others. He participated in the Venice International Art Biennale in 1968, 1978 and 1986 and Documenta in Kassel in 1968. He was a consultant for Urban Decor for the Municipality of Milan and president of ADI from 1976 to 1979. He has been awarded the Compasso d’Oro four times and is a member of the Parma Studies Centre and Communication Archive, which contains about nine thousand original drawings by him. His numerous publications include Funzione della ricerca estetica (1970), Ipotesi di rifondazione del progetto (1978), Progetto e passione (2001), Autoprogettazione? (2002), La valigia senza manico (2004), Lezioni di disegno (2008) and 25 modi di piantare un chiodo (2011).

 

Since 1969 he has expanded his professional sphere from Japan to Italy and the international scene in general as a designer of environments and industrial products. He has designed numerous successful products, from furniture to LCD televisions and from robots to household appliances and furnishing accessories. In recent years he has dedicated himself to training, holding seminars and workshops in Japan, Europe and Asia and he continues, as always,  to dedicate attention to traditional craft techniques and the development of local manufacturing activities.

 

For over fifty years he has been involved in visual communication design, experimental research and operational methodology, collaborating with the leading Italian companies. A number of well-known didactic texts have resulted from his professional experience and published by Lupetti Editori di Comunicazione, Corraini Edizioni and Franco Angeli. Since 1999 he has been co-owner of a design theory and practice workshop at the Politecnico di Milano Design School  where, for five years he has been in charge of a course in advanced Type Design training. He was president of the Art Directors Club of Milan, Chairman of BEDA, president of Icograda and president of ADI from 1999 to 2001, creating the ADI Foundation for Italian Design. During his career he has obtained numerous awards and recognitions including a  Special International Award at the XIII Triennale di Milano; two ADI Compasso d’Oro awards in 1979 and a third in 2004 and the 2008 Medal for Design from the Anahuac Mexico Norte University. In 2002 he was awarded an honorary degree in Industrial Design by the Politecnico di Milano.

 

She lived through the establishment of Italian design together with Sergio Gandini, her companion from when she was young and whose choices she shared and inspired with freedom and passion. Together in the early 1960s they decided to get involved in the world that would later be defined as “Italian design”, starting with distribution and opening the “Stile” shop in Brescia, where Piera Pezzolo Gandini was responsible for administration, sales and warehouse management, logistics and brand management. Here she also organized exhibitions by artists and designers from Mario Ceroli to Mirabili, Archizoom, Mario Botta and Antonia Astori, contributing to the widespread diffusion of design culture. “Stile” also played an important role in the innovative choices inherent in the management of Flos, a lighting company chaired since 1965 by Sergio Gandini. Firmly convinced of the originality of the encounter between entrepreneur and designer, she is currently dedicated to building the Flos historical archive.

Born in Lecco in 1951, he began his career at the Fiat Style Centre in 1972, moving to the Studio Bonetto in Milan in 1975 as head of interior design. From 1979 to 1986 he was head of car design at the IDEA Institute in Turin and, after a brief experience at Trussardi Design Milan, he worked for Alfa Romeo as head of the Milan Design Centre. In 1994 he was appointed manager responsible for the development of the new models at the Fiat and Alfa Romeo Design Centre, for which he designed the 156 (1997) and 147 (2001). After moving to the SEAT Design Centre in 1999, he oversaw the Salsa and Tango concept cars, as well as the León, Altea and Toledo models, among others. Since March 2002 he has been responsible for design at the Audi Group brands (Audi, Lamborghini and SEAT), obtaining the “Most beautiful car in the world” award in 2004 for the Audi A6 and the Lamborghini Murciélago Roadster. Since 2007 he has been responsible for design at the Volkswagen Group, where he follows all the brands and for which he has created the sixth generation of the Golf (2008) and the new Polo.

She was born in Sondrio on 12 November 1921 and studied at the Collegio Reale delle Fanciulle in Milan. She attended Francesco Messina’s courses at the Brera Academy, where she graduated in Sculpture. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s she worked in the artistic office of the Laveno Ceramic Society, first with Guido Andloviz, a leading figure in the history of Italian Design in the twentieth century, and then succeeding him. In the 1970s she was asked to direct the Richard Ginori Art Centre with responsibility for all the articles in production. After the establishment of Pozzi-Ginori, she decided to manage the sanitary ware and tile design department. Since 1978 she worked as a consultant and freelance, developing a wide range of products for various companies (including bathroom fixtures for Cesame and taps for Raf) and looking at all kinds of materials at every element of  design (from architecture to jewellery), from ceramics, to glass, to metal. Many of her creations are exhibited in museums around the world, including the MoMA in New York.

Born in 1936 in Switzerland, he studied architecture in Lausanne and Hamburg. An architecture and design historian and critic, he taught at the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in Vienna, the Hochschule der bildende Künste Saar in Saarbrücken and the ISIA in Florence. He was director of the Kunsthaus in Hamburg, the Internationales Design Zentrum in Berlin (IDZ) and  the Center de Création Industrielle (CCI) at the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris. He is the author of numerous publications in the field of art, architecture, design and applied arts, and was director of the magazines “Traverse”, “Domus”, “Crossing” and “Rassegna”. Author, curator and responsible for numerous exhibitions and congresses of architecture, art and design in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the United States, he is a consultant for companies and institutions in Austria France, Germany and Italy, and responsible for the reissues of Gebrüder Thonet Vienna.

Graduated from the Milan Polytechnic in 1951, she began her professional activity in 1963, working on civil architecture and industrial design. She has  designed single-family homes, apartments, museum installations, offices, shops in Italy and abroad. In the field of industrial design she has been involved with the design of elements for furniture and components for the building industry. She has lectured and taught at Berkeley, Barcelona, ​​São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Detroit and Los Angeles. From 1981 to 1983 she taught Architectural Design and Industrial and Furniture Design at the Faculty of Architecture of the Milan Polytechnic. She was a member of the board of directors of the XVI Triennale di Milano and in 1986 took part in the Progetto domestico exhibition set up as part of the XVII Triennale. She has obtained numerous Italian and international awards, and is the author of Le dimensioni umane dell’abitazione (1980), La dimensione del domestico (1980) (in La casa tra tecniche e sogno, edited by Marisa Bertoldini, 1988) and Progettista a committente (in Struttura e percorsi dell’atto progettuale, 1991).