It was 1958 when Bruno Munari decided that art could travel, move, and go on vacation with us. His Travel Sculptures were souvenirs for the curious – light, foldable, transformable. “When the objects we use every day and the surroundings we live in have become in themselves a work of art, then we shall be able to say that we have achieved balance,” Munari said. For him, balance was not a static goal but an ongoing dialogue between function and aesthetics, structure and imagination. 

Today, nearly 70 years later, that intuition is reinterpreted by Valextra at Milano Design Week with Costa 70 + Zaven. In this project, the Venetian duo Zaven – Enrica Cavarzan and Marco Zavagno – reimagine Munari’s vision in collaboration with the historic Milanese luxury leather goods house. If Munari started with paper, this new iteration takes a bolder approach: leather, glass, metal, resin – solid, almost sculptural objects designed to be assembled, disassembled, and reconfigured like a house of cards. Everything is enclosed in the iconic Costa 70 suitcase, reminiscent of a musical instrument case, but instead of carrying notes, it carries shapes in motion. Produced in a limited edition of ten pieces, Costa 70 + Zaven exists in a space between memory and innovation, between the rigor of design and the freedom of imagination, ready to transform with its owner.

“With this object, we are also opening up experimentation to the public. We wanted to create something special and elegant, requiring conscious interaction – something that could be changed over time, built once or a thousand times. An object open to all interpretations and sensitivities, inviting interaction,” Zaven explains. The collaboration with Valextra – a symbol of refined Milanese craftsmanship – has resulted in a Matryoshka-like creation: a rediscovered archival suitcase containing a set of essential forms, ready to be assembled into ever-evolving, intimate, personal structures. Like the colorful building blocks of childhood, Costa 70 + Zaven rekindles a creativity that adult life so often puts on hold.

Costa 70 + Zaven is also an homage to Valextra’s legacy in design. The brand won the prestigious Compasso d’Oro in 1954 for its 24-Hour Briefcase, and as CEO Xavier Rougeaux states: “Born in Milan, conceived in Milan, inspired by Milan – Valextra is a reflection of its city, embodying both its sobriety and its splendor.” The suitcase draws on the maison’s most iconic designs, originally conceived for specific uses – perfume cases, material sample carriers, typewriter and laptop cases. This time, however, the contents are an idea: a nomadic, open-ended form of creativity, made up of an aluminum base, a polished steel rod, resin elements in pure geometric shapes, and a black rubber ring to bring them together. These are tools for constructing personal, wandering architectures, where the act of assembly itself becomes both a ritual and a freedom – screwing in the rod, positioning the rings, fitting the resin pieces, rotating, balancing – each configuration forming a new landscape to explore.

The installation at Valextra’s Via Manzoni boutique echoes the same geometric elements found inside the suitcase, amplifying them into an immersive space. Vivid, colorful blocks succeed one another in a carefully orchestrated chromatic balance, creating a visual dialogue with the modular architecture of the object on display.

Munari saw his Travel Sculptures as a point of reference – a small visual refuge, carrying a piece of one’s own culture even into the most anonymous hotel room. Today, with Costa 70 + Zaven’s “Travel Architectures,” that concept goes even further: instead of merely carrying a landmark, one carries a miniature creative construction site – an aesthetic survival kit for those who cannot help but build their own sense of order.

Zaven and Valextra have transformed this vision into an elegant, ever-changing gesture – an object to be assembled and disassembled, much like the best thoughts. If there is one lesson to take from Munari, it is that the beauty of things lies in how we make them our own. In a world that insists on categorizing everything – art here, design there, fashion on one side, furniture on the other – Costa 70 + Zaven is all and none of these things at once.

Opening image: Valextra Vocabolario 2.0, Costa 70 + Zaven, 2025. Courtesy Valextra