The exhibition DesignUP – Soluzioni di continuità (Solutions of Continuity), curated by Stefano Micelli of Ca' Foscari University in Venice and Francesco Zurlo of Politecnico di Milano, is the new thematic insight on the permanent collection of the Compasso d'Oro award, hosted since 2021 in the spaces of ADI Design Museum. With a renewed selection of products and design methodologies among the prize-winners from 1954 to the present day, DesignUP intends to represent each object as the result of a social, cultural and technical phenomenology that gives the most famous products of Italian design their own uniqueness; the display is also new, to enhance different visions and interpretations.

“The selection of the 30 Compasso d’Oro in the DesignUP exhibition has a dual purpose” Zurlo explains: “on the one hand, to highlight the role of design as a powerful activator of innovation, stemming from specific market, industry, and people’s needs; on the other hand, to identify some elements of discontinuity in thinking, typology, usage, and materials that the selected artifacts aim to represent”.

Through this new setup, the museum commits to offering a novel design, expanding the semiotic sphere of various products to the cultural and industrial fields. The exhibition project highlights the most specific traits of the Made-in-Italy way, emphasizing how the country’s development has been profoundly influenced by the culture of design through a complex system of “continuity solutions”. This has given rise to a true cultural koinè, which has strengthened the drive of industrial districts, fostered the encounter with science, and contributed decisively to the transformations of the manufacturing system, allowing the positioning of Italian products in the high-end segments of international markets.