CULTURE
Record-breaking design
18 April 2019

Although the main object of our collection is the cars, at the Museum we never forget to remember the names of the men and women who helped create the Alfisti dream.

386,236 attendees in 6 days, from 181 countries, an attendance record that allows the 58th edition of the Salone del Mobile to close with a +12% increase in attendance compared to 2017. There were 2,418 exhibitors, 34% of whom from abroad, from 43 countries, divided between Salone Internazionale del Mobile, Salone Internazionale del Complemento d'Arredo, Euroluce Workplace3.0 and S.Project; of these 550 were the designers taking part in SaloneSatellite. Numbers that describe a Milan in full cultural ferment, where tradition and culture meet. We also made our contribution.

After last year's edition in which the Fratelli Cozzi Museum exhibited the Montreal, an icon of style as well as "man's greatest aspiration in terms of cars", we returned to the Fuorisalone, joining the exhibition set up at the Archivio Giovanni Sacchi in Sesto San Giovanni by the Circuito Lombardo dei Musei del Design.

The Design Museums complement their collections with archives representing an extraordinary heritage of sketches, technical drawings, proofs, executives, notes and visual notes drawn by designers during the process of creating a product.

Although the main object of our collection is the car, at the Museum we never forget to remember the names of the men and women who have contributed to creating the Alfa dream and, among them, an honourable mention is dedicated both to the car designers and to the designers and artists who wanted to celebrate the "biscione" by drawing exclusive trophies of great symbolic value. This is why we wanted to talk about Lucio Fontana, Agenore Fabbri, Bruno Munari and Giò Pomodoro at the Fuorisalone. We would like to thank Andrea De Adamich for sending us the photographic material and congratulate him on winning all these trophies!

Ludovico Gualzetti, curator of the exhibition and head of the Giovanni Sacchi Archives, explained the decision to "privilege the hand of the designer who helps with the drawing to find the concept of the object. The archives of the Design Museums are a piece of history that young people should visit, even quite often, because inside there are these things that can not only inspire but also teach".

The drawings, trophies, magazines, volumes and documents relating to the design of the Alfa Romeos on display are kept in the Museum in the CozziLab, where an important digitalisation project is underway and the documentation is available for theses and researchpaths.