Listening to design: at the ADI Design Museum in Milan, a series of themed evenings

Twentieth-century music and design: different languages but with an underground bond that stems from common creative principles. This is the idea that inspires the appointments at the ADI Design Museum that continue through February 2024, to discover in presence through live listening and objects on display connections, similarities, and paths of evolution in two only seemingly distant fields of culture.

Not a history of music in parallel with a history of design, but a path of poetic correspondences in a non-chronological journey. Following the first evening, Primary Forms, held on Oct. 2, 2023, onNov. 11 the second event in the cycle is entitled DISCOMPOSITION and will feature an illustration of compositional principles and the performance of pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gérard Grisey. In parallel, design objects include the Timor calendar by Enzo Mari, the Sciangai clothing rack by De Pas, D’Urbino, Lomazzi, and the Panda automobile by Giorgetto Giugiaro.

Speaking with the curators are Stefano Casciani, director of Disegno the new industrial culture, and Luciano Galimberti, president of ADI. Musician Simone Libralon - a violist with the Milan Symphony Orchestra and curator of the meetings with designers Alessandro Colombo and Valentina Fisichella - alternates their speeches with live performances on his viola, creating unthought-of links between the two creative strands: a bridge between the world of design and the world of music.

The review continues on Jan. 22, 2024, 6:30 p.m. with Organicism: pieces by Pierre Schaeffer and Iannis Xenakis. In parallel, design objects include the Vertebra armchair by Emilio Ambasz, the Moscardino cutlery by Matteo Ragni and Giulio Iacchetti, and the IN-EI lamp by Issey Miyake.

The last appointment on Feb. 12, 2024, 6:30 p.m. Anarchic Decorativism: pieces by John Cage and Bruno Maderna. In parallel, design objects include Alessandro Mendini’s Proust armchair, Ettore Sottsass’s Carlton bookcase, and Francesco Binfarè’s Genghis Khan sofa.

In each appointment, speeches emphasizing the similarities of the compositional principle alternate with live interpretations by Simone Libralon, who performs selected pieces on viola that open the discussion between curators and guests, in a path that delves into the poetics of design in music.

ADI Design Museum promotes the meetings as an expression of its multidisciplinary vocation, proposing an unprecedented reading of design through an initiative aimed at both insiders and enthusiasts: a cultural bridge between the world of design and the world of music.

Admission is free, and the meetings are broadcast live on ADI Design Museum’s Instagram channel.

The texts of the talks will be published in a volume. The meetings have the patronage of the Milan Polytechnic.

Listening to design: at the ADI Design Museum in Milan, a series of themed evenings

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