Brilliance and innovation, but also simplicity and elegance, on view in two exhibitions in Milan.
For the 100th anniversary of his birth (which came in 2020, to be precise, but the celebration was postponed to this spring), two installations retrace the design career of Vico Magistretti through drawings, objects, prototypes and original pieces, as well as commentary on the part of his students.
Fondazione Vico Magistretti has opened “Magistretti Revisited”, an exhibition (curated by Rosanna Pavoni with Margherita Pellino) inspired by the game of Chinese boxes, to narrate the work of Vico, architect and designer, in his studio in Milan, as well as his bond with that city.
The first box is his studio in relation to the city, the second is inside the studio itself, and the third contains the archives, with 60 years of projects (now available to all thanks to the portal archivio.vicomagistretti.it). The exhibition (with display design by Valentina Cerra, Chiara Corbani, Luca Poncellini) includes objects, drawings, original furnishings, all accompanied by the words of Magistretti himself – taken from interviews, notes, descriptions – presented as enlargements of the pages of a notebook.
The entire design path of Magistretti’s career is the focus, at Triennale Milano, of the exhibition “Vico Magistretti: Milanese Architect”, created in collaboration with Fondazione Vico Magistretti and curated by Gabriele Neri. Divided into theme sections, the show retraces his work in the fields of design and architecture: a panoply of drawings, sketches, models, photographs, prototypes and original pieces conserved in the archives, together with materials provided by companies – Cassina first of all, then Artemide, Campeggi, De Padova, Flou, Kartell and Oluce – and private institutions (exhibit design by Lorenzo Bini/BINOCLE). The show also includes comments – in the form of “tributes to Vico” – of the designers Konstantin Grcic and Jasper Morrison, who were his students at the Royal College of Art in London.
Magistretti Revisited
Fondazione studio museo Vico Magistretti
18 May 2021 – 24 February 2022
Vico Magistretti. Architetto milanese
Triennale Milano
11 May – 12 September 2021
