_{Image courtesy of La Triennale di Milano}

Mario Bellini. Italian Beauty
La Triennale di Milano
From 19 January to 19 March 2017

The sweeping overview spans almost 60 years of design, architecture, exhibition design and more besides. This retrospective exhibition opens exactly thirty years since the show devoted to him by MoMA in New York. The MoMA exhibition in 1987 examined his activities as a designer, which even then were represented by 25 works in its permanent collection. 1987 proved to be a watershed year for Bellini, who from that year on has devoted himself mainly to architecture on a large scale and to urban design.

_{Image courtesy of La Triennale di Milano}

This is therefore a tribute to the remarkable, many-sided work of an Italian designer who has achieved all manner of success on both the small scale (eight Compasso d’Oro awards, and objects and furnishings that have become icons in homes and offices around the world, often anticipating or revolutionising tastes and styles), and on the large scale (conference centres, trade fair venues and museums from Japan to the USA, Germany and Australia and, in 2012, the Department of Islamic Art – a golden wave for the most prestigious museum in the world, the Louvre in Paris).

_{Image courtesy of La Triennale di Milano}

The exhibition is spread out over more than ten thousand square feet and is divided into a Portal, a Gallery, a Piazza and four Stanze, each with a guiding theme. Its aim is to focus attention on the need for, and on the subversive and redeeming role of, beauty. Hence the subtitle “Italian Beauty”.

_{Image courtesy of La Triennale di Milano}

The curator of the exhibition is Deyan Sudjic, director of the London Design Museum. With Ermanno Ranzani (architecture) and Marco Sammicheli (design). The installation design is by Mario Bellini himself, for ever since 1962 he has always been keen on staging exhibitions, mainly of art and architecture.

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