Examine the complexity of the present by going back to the origin of things and eliminating all superstructure. All codes. This is the proposed aim of the exhibition “No_Code Shelter: stories of contemporary life” created by Andrea Caputo for Tod’s on the occasion of Design Week 2019.

The stables at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology play host to five primitive buildings re-interpreted with modern materials. Five archetypical refuges which in turn house, via video, the reflections of their designers on the theme of hybridisation and, in general on contemporary fluid society in which consolidated style codes, like interpretive codes, struggle to keep up with the syncopated rhythm of work and of life itself.  

To lend form and words to No_Code Shelter”, Caputo has chosen a pool of exceptional visionaries from the fields of design, business, creativity and research: the Japanese art director Mai Ikuzawa, the founder of Bow Wow International, Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin, the founders of Formafantasma, the American car designer Chris Bangle, the Italian illustrator Olimpia Zagnoli, the Norwegian entrepreneur Petter Neby, the creator of Punkt, the Italian astronaut Maurizio Cheli, the master of design Marcello Gandini, who created legendary cars such as the Lamborghini Countach and the Lancia Stratos, and last but by no means least, Yong Bae Seok, the creator of the Tod’s Shoeker collection (a mix of shoe and sneaker) which, in the name of encounter and intermingling, blends the traditions of Italian artisan style with informality and a study of high-performance materials. As Simone Farresin of Formafantasma states in his video, “nothing is more contemporary than hybridisation”.