Unicita D'Italia: ’Made in Italy’ Exhibition

Unicita D'Italia: ’Made in Italy’ exhibition held at Palazzo delle Esposizione and Macro Testaccio, La Palenda - Monday, May 30th, 2011



Alan, Michelle, Lindsay

Unicita D'Italia

Macro Museum Testaccio, Rome - May 30, 2011

The “Unicita d’Italia” exhibition was created in celebration of the 150^th anniversary of the unification of Italy. It is an illustration of progress of the last fifty years through Italian design.

Beginning in 1954, the ADI Compasso d’Oro Award gives a prize to top emerging products once every three years.  As a result of this growing collection, today it provides an excellent perspective on the evolution of tastes, habits, the creativity, and research involved in industrial products. Consequently, design becomes a way of producing and thinking about the world that surrounds us.

ISIA: Oldest Design School in Italy

Instituto Superiore Per Le Industrie Artistiche, Florence - Tuesday, May 30th, 2011
Today we visited the I.S.I.A - Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche , which is the oldest design institution in Italy (it was founded in 1965). They focus on product design and communication design and have both a 3 year undergraduate program and a 2 year masters program. We visited the Florence location which was founded in 1975. We were so surprised (and jealous) to see their studios, which were full of natural sunlight!

ADI Compasso d'Oro Selection Process

The ADI Compasso d’Oro Award is a triennial national event that is the highest recognition to merit the design qualities of a product, a service or research. The work should represent the importance of value, culture, quality, system process and sustainable innovation in Italian Industrial Design. For more than 50 years the Compasso d’Oro has helped to promote Italian design to the rest of the world.


The origin of the prize was established in 1954, in Milan by the La Rinascente department store. Later in the sixties, ADI – Association for the Industrial Design received the award and since then manages the Compasso d’Oro Historical Collection. The selection process that takes place in three phases conducted by the ADI Design Index. The ADI Design Index nominates the preliminary selection every year and an international jury awards the final selection of the Compasso d’Oro Award every three years.

ADI is an is a group of many individuals, companies and organizations interested in the design community that are the main protagonists who interpret what is Italian Design and Made in Italy. Over the many years ADI has provided Italy the opportunity to establish itself as an international leader in design.


Jessica Yiu, Laura Moor, Kelvin Chow

History of the Compasso D'Oro Logo - "The Golden Ruler"

Unicita D'Italia: Made in Rome Exhibition - Monday, May 30th, 2011

On May 31st we attended the Unicita D'Italia: Made in Italy exhibition that celebrated the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. It was held at the Palazzo delle Esposizione and the Macro Testaccio, La Palenda. At the art exhibition there was a space devoted to talking about the Compasso D'Oro which is the most prestigious award for Industrial Design. What I found interesting was the chosen logo and idea of using a “Golden Mean Compass” as an award. Gio Ponti (famous Italian architect and founder of ADI) and Alberto Rosselli together came up with the name for the award. The logo for the award was designed by Albe Steiner and styled by Alberto Rosselli and Marco Zanuso.