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ADI Design Museum
The history
Inaugurated in May 2021 in 5,000 square metres of exhibition space in the square of the same name, the ADI occupies the former industrial area in Milan between Via Ceresio and Via Bramante, a space that in the 1930s was a depot for horse-drawn trams and an electricity distribution plant.
The museum is managed by the Fondazione ADI Collezione Compasso d’Oro, established in 2001 by ADI – Associazione per il Disegno Industriale (an institution that promotes the Compasso d’Oro Award, the most prestigious international design award), in order to preserve and enhance what has been built up over the decades of the Award’s activities: a national cultural heritage, recognised by the Ministry of Culture as being of ‘exceptional artistic and historical interest’.
On the occasion of the opening of the Museum, a new logo, based on the one originally designed by Albe Steiner, was created by the Migliore+Servetto studio of architects in collaboration with graphic designer and architect Italo Lupi.
The collection
ADI Design Museum hosts the entire repertoire of the winning projects of the Compasso d’Oro Award, an award born in 1954 from an idea of Gio Ponti to valorise the quality of made-in-Italy design – today the oldest and most institutional recognition of the sector worldwide.
A dynamic museum, constantly evolving and destined to tell the story of Italian design in its industrial, economic, cultural and social, popular and research aspects. In addition to the Permanent Collection, the museum’s spaces host temporary exhibitions, spaces for business meetings, design lectures, workshops for children, as well as transversal initiatives and meetings for the general public – with the aim of contributing to the dissemination and enhancement of design culture on a national and international level. Also available to the public are a library, ADI headquarters and historical archive, a bookshop and a catering area.
Photo: ADI Design Museum, Milan
Temporary exhibitions
Antonio Sant’Elia
The ADI Design Museum presents an exhibition dedicated to Antonio Sant’Elia, one of the most visionary figures of Futurism, exploring the dialogue between the real city and urban utopia through the language of digital technologies.
Alongside the exhibition at the Pinacoteca Civica di Como, the Milan edition focuses on Sant’Elia’s architectural imagination and its lasting influence on visions of the modern city. On display are fourteen original drawings from the collections of the Pinacoteca Civica di Como (1913–1914), rarely exhibited, accompanied by an immersive multimedia projection created by Terminus Digital Art in collaboration with Epson.
The exhibition reflects on the revolutionary idea of the Città Nuova — a dynamic, polycentric, and interconnected metropolis — anticipating contemporary themes of mobility, infrastructure, and the relationship between technology and architecture. It is a tribute to a visionary thinker who, between Como and Milan, imagined the future and continues to inspire generations of designers.
A project promoted by the Musei Civici di Como and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, in collaboration with the ADI Design Museum, with the support of ASF and Epson.
Visit information
- 8 November – 8 December 2025
- Admission included in the museum ticket
ALCHIMIA
Alchimia. The Revolution of Italian Design, the first complete retrospective dedicated to the Milanese collective founded by Alessandro and Adriana Guerriero in 1976 and active until 1992.
After its inaugural showing at the Bröhan Museum in Berlin (April–September 2025), curated by François Burkhardtand Tobias Hoffmann, the exhibition arrives in the city where the Studio Alchimia experience was born, in a reimagined and expanded version featuring an entirely new display concept designed by Alessandro Guerriero himself. Conceived as a poetic and visionary device, it invites visitors to step onto the “tappetozattera” (“carpet-raft”), as Guerriero calls it—a symbolic structure that suspends the everyday and immerses the audience in the utopian and experimental spirit that made Alchimia a singular phenomenon in the landscape of Italian design.
Emerging in a period of profound social and cultural change, Alchimia became a workshop of freedom and cross-pollination where design, architecture, visual arts, fashion, music, and performance intertwined to shape a new, ironic, and poetic language.
Through the theory of “banal design,” the group overturned the rules of functionalism and industrial aesthetics, restoring to design its narrative, symbolic, and interpretative power.
The exhibition features over 150 works, including objects, furniture, sketches, photographs, paintings, and videos, retracing the collective’s history and its lasting impact on contemporary visual culture.
The retrospective is accompanied by a 400-page trilingual catalogue, edited by François Burkhardt and Tobias Hoffmann, co-published by the Bröhan Museum and the ADI Design Museum.
The exhibition is held under the joint patronage of German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella.
Exhibition Sponsors: Poste Italiane, Istituto per il Credito Sportivo e Culturale, Abet Laminati
Visit information
- November 11, 2025 – January 22, 2026
- Admission included in the museum ticket
Monday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 8 pm.
Last admission 7:15 pm.
Friday
2 hours
Temporary exhibitions included in the ticket price
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