Iconic lines, pioneering movements, and timeless pieces… This section explores the legacies of design that continue to inspire today’s creators. A bridge between past and present, craftsmanship and vision.
The Regency Style: When France breaks free from Versailles This silent but decisive revolution transforms our conception of French elegance. The first Régence curves already outline the future of rococo, while the last Louis XIV symmetries testify to a still-present past. The Regency style “Régence” in french, revolutionizes Western art by marking the transition between…
On September 18, 1981, in a Milanese showroom in the fashion district, an aesthetic bomb exploded. The first collection of the Memphis Group astonished, shocked, and fascinated: furniture in garish colors, lamps defying the laws of balance, surfaces covered with psychedelic patterns, a formal exuberance that seemed to openly mock fifty years of modernist good…
Why the Atollo, born in 1977, is still an absolute icon? There are lamps that you replace. And then there’s the Atollo. An icon of Italian design created in 1977 by the Milanese designer Vico Magistretti for Oluce, it has never been retouched, modified or “reissued”. It is sold today exactly as in 1977, or…
New York, 1950. The Museum of Modern Art inaugurates its first “Good Design” exhibition, organized by Edgar Kaufmann Jr. In the MoMA galleries, Scandinavian furniture, Japanese objects, and American ceramics coexist according to a single criterion: the intrinsic quality of design, regardless of price or prestige. While Mid-Century Modern celebrates American prosperity and Europe rebuilds,…
Los Angeles, 1949. In the hills of Pacific Palisades, Charles and Ray Eames complete their Case Study House #8, an architectural manifesto of postwar America. Steel, glass, and vibrant colors assemble into a lightweight structure open to the California landscape. While Europe laboriously rebuilds and the Bauhaus dissolves into emigration, America invents a new aesthetic…
Paris, 1925. The International Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Modern Industries unveiled a revolutionary aesthetic language to the world. Gone were the vegetal curves of Art Nouveau, replaced by geometric lines, precious materials, and assumed modernity. Art Deco was born, carrying the optimism of an era fascinated by speed, technological progress, and urban elegance. Art…
Florence, 1966. A group of young Italian architects found Archizoom Associati and begin producing provocative projects that question every certainty of modern design. While Good Design champions rationality and the Ulm School systematizes methodology, an Italian avant-garde radically rejects functionalism. Radical Design emerges—oppositional, conceptual, provocative. This movement, which dominates Italy from 1966 to 1975, does…
Brutalism, an emblematic architectural movement of the second half of the 20th century, continues to fascinate and divide nearly sixty years after its first stirrings. Characterized by the massive use of raw concrete and imposing geometric forms, this architectural style embodies both post-war social utopias and a radical aesthetic that still marks our urban landscapes…
Between the oil shocks of the 1970s and the technological euphoria of the late 1980s, an aesthetic revolution transformed architecture and design: the High-Tech movement elevated technology into a creative manifesto. Far from concealing pipes, wiring, or metal structures behind decorative cladding, this radical avant-garde proudly exposed them, transforming infrastructure into ornament and technical performance…
When Milan Reinvents Daily Life Through Industrial Beauty Milan, 1954. In the workshops of Via Durini, Gio Ponti contemplates a Chiavari peasant chair that is one hundred and fifty years old. Around him, Italy is rising from its ashes with a vigor that astonishes all of Europe. That afternoon, Ponti decides to reinvent this anonymous…
Traditional Scandinavian design embodies much more than just a decorative style: it reveals a philosophy of life deeply rooted in Nordic culture. Born of the encounter between rigorous climatic constraints, ancestral craft heritage and social-democratic ideals, this aesthetic movement has conquered the world with its elegant simplicity, exemplary functionality and warm humanism. From Sweden to…
1. What is Bauhaus? Bauhaus Definition Born in Germany in the aftermath of World War I, the Bauhaus marked a decisive turning point in the history of decorative arts and design. More than just an art school, this revolutionary movement redefined the relationship between artistic creation and industrial production, laying the foundations for an aesthetic…
