Italian design has been deeply appreciated all over the world since the Middle Ages and Florentine design was probably the most important. Brunelleschi’s Florence Cathedral, the precious silk garments of the Renaissance, the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci, the gardens and squares of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the main European capitals, were just a few examples of the Florentine “genius”.
Anyway after a decades oblivion probably started in XIX CENTURY , an Event held in New York launched again Italian Design as main Benchmark to look at .
In 1972 the revolutionary exhibition “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape” was staged in the MoMA of New York, curated by the Argentinian architect Emilio Ambasz: A group of selected Italian architects and designers were purposely commissioned for designing a range of “environments” . Some of these “environments” followed the line of the Italian “radical design”, representing alternative utopias: Young associated architects or designer based in Firenze in studios as Superstudio, 9999, Archizoom and more, were launching new forms ,changing patterns of life style: exploring new materials and production techniques.
Emilio Ambasz, wrote : Italian design may be seen as a micromodel whose examination and evaluation may help us to better understand the mutual relationships that exist between design and society.
those personalities made Florence and Milan the centers of a creative revolution, making them as internationally relevant and heavily influencing contemporary architecture with objects, videos, installations, performances and narrations. Into this generation of Designers, the students related mainly to the Faculty of Architecture in Florence, has been the first in Italy to pursue a new vision of the architectural discipline, in search of an unprecedented combination of architectural utopia and more advanced technologies. The Moma Exhibition has probably been the Milestone which marked MADE IN ITALY as synonymous of EXCELLENCE worldwide.