Museo del Design 1880-1980

About this Museum

The Museo del Design 1880-1980 was originally founded as Il Museo dell’Arredo Contemporaneo (The Museum of Contemporary Furniture) in 1988 by Raffaello Biagetti in Ravenna. It was co-curated by Giovanni Klaus Koenig, Filippo Alison, and Giuseppe Chigiotti, and its mission was to serve as a didactic resource to teach the history and development of design and its relationship to technological and social change. In 2015, the Musei Italiani (founded by Federico Bonadeo) took over the collection and brought it to Milan, relaunching it as Museo del Design 1880-1980.

The collection traces the history of design, beginning in the late 19^th century with pieces built by the Shakers, on to Art Nouveau and its international interpretations, the avant-garde movements of Europe and Russia, the Bauhaus, Modernism, American design, organic design, the phenomenon of “Made in Italy,” and finishes with the Radical design of Alchimia and Memphis. It features pieces by several design masters, including, but not limited to: Antoni Gaudì, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Charles and Ray Eames, Alvar Aalto, Gio Ponti, Giuseppe Terragni, Marco Zanuso, Pier Giacomo and Achille Castiglioni, Franco Albini, Arne Jacobsen, Eero Saarinen, George Nelson, Vico Magistretti, Bruno Munari, Gaetano Pesce, Mario Bellini, Enzo Mari, Alessandro Mendini, and Ettore Sottsass.