ALCHIMIA

Alchimia. The Revolution of Italian Design, the first complete retrospective dedicated to the Milanese collective founded by Alessandro and Adriana Guerriero in 1976 and active until 1992.

After its inaugural showing at the Bröhan Museum in Berlin (April–September 2025), curated by François Burkhardtand Tobias Hoffmann, the exhibition arrives in the city where the Studio Alchimia experience was born, in a reimagined and expanded version featuring an entirely new display concept designed by Alessandro Guerriero himself. Conceived as a poetic and visionary device, it invites visitors to step onto the “tappetozattera” (“carpet-raft”), as Guerriero calls it—a symbolic structure that suspends the everyday and immerses the audience in the utopian and experimental spirit that made Alchimia a singular phenomenon in the landscape of Italian design.

Emerging in a period of profound social and cultural change, Alchimia became a workshop of freedom and cross-pollination where design, architecture, visual arts, fashion, music, and performance intertwined to shape a new, ironic, and poetic language.

Through the theory of “banal design,” the group overturned the rules of functionalism and industrial aesthetics, restoring to design its narrative, symbolic, and interpretative power.

The exhibition features over 150 works, including objects, furniture, sketches, photographs, paintings, and videos, retracing the collective’s history and its lasting impact on contemporary visual culture.

The retrospective is accompanied by a 400-page trilingual catalogue, edited by François Burkhardt and Tobias Hoffmann, co-published by the Bröhan Museum and the ADI Design Museum.

The exhibition is held under the joint patronage of German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella.

Exhibition Sponsors: Poste Italiane, Istituto per il Credito Sportivo e Culturale, Abet Laminati

November 11, 2025 – January 22, 2026