The Compasso d'Oro is an industrial design award originated in Italy in 1954. Initially sponsored by the La Rinascente, a Milanese department store, the award has been organised and managed by the Associazione per il Disegno Industriale (ADI) since 1964. The Compasso d'Oro is the first, and among the most recognized and respected design awards. It aims to acknowledge and promote quality in its field in Italy and internationally, and has been called both the "Nobel" and the "Oscar" of design.
Giovanni "Gio" Ponti was an Italian architect, industrial designer, furniture designer, artist, teacher, writer and publisher.
Achille Castiglioni was an Italian architect and designer of furniture, lighting, radiograms and other objects. As a professor of design, he advised his students "If you are not curious, forget it. If you are not interested in others, what they do and how they act, then being a designer is not the right job for you."
Maria Cristina Mariani Dameno, known as Cini Boeri, was an Italian architect and designer. She was considered "one of the great pioneering women in Italian design and architecture", who was described as a "formidable architect and designer, paragon of Milanese elegance and verve."
Angelo Mangiarotti was an Italian architect and industrial designer. His designs were mostly for industrial buildings and railway stations. In 1994 he received the Compasso d'Oro award of the Associazione per il Disegno Industriale for his lifetime of achievement.
Giulio Cappellini is the founder and art director of the eponymous Italian furniture company Cappellini based in Milan. In 2004 the Company became part of the Poltrona Frau Group. In 2021, it was acquired by the American office furnisher Haworth Inc.
Gianfranco Frattini was an Italian architect and designer. He is a member of the generation that created the Italian design movement in the late 1950s through the 1960s and is considered to have played a major role in shaping it.
Roberto Pezzetta is an Italian artist and industrial designer.
Enzo Mari was an Italian modernist artist and furniture designer who is known to have influenced many generations of industrial designers.
The Scuola Politecnica di Design (SPD) is a Milan-based postgraduate training institution focused on project disciplines in the areas of design and visual communication. The postgrad offering of SPD includes yearly masters in industrial design, interior design, transportation and car design, visual design, "Web Design and Multimedia". Teaching is organized in intensive workshops, labs, theoretical study, seminars and activities in the field; courses end with a professional internship.
Piero Lissoni is an Italian architect, art director and designer. For over thirty years, he has developed projects the world over in the fields of architecture, landscape and interior, as well as in product and graphic design. He is also art director for Alpi, B&B Italia, Boffi, Living Divani, Lema, Lualdi, Porro and Sanlorenzo.
Flexform SpA is an Italian company with its head office in Meda, Italy, at the centre of the furniture production district of La Brianza. Founded in 1959 by the Galimberti brothers, the company designs, produces and markets furniture and furnishing accessories for residential and public use.
Margherita "Mara" Servetto, is an Italian architect and designer. She is the co-founder of Migliore + Servetto Architects.
Salvatori is an Italian design brand specialising in natural stone such as marble, limestone and sandstone.
Studio Alchimia was a post-radical avant-garde group founded in Milan in 1976 by Alessandro Guerriero and his sister Adriana with the stated mission of "materializing a non-existent thing into being."
Sergio Asti was an Italian designer and architect, primarily known for his industrial designs for firms such as Artemide, Brionvega, FontanaArte, Gabbianelli, Heller, Knoll, Salviati, and Zanotta.
Ernesto Gismondi was an Italian designer, founder of Artemide. Gismondi was best known for designing light fixtures.
Livio Castiglioni was an Italian architect and designer. He made a significant contribution to twentieth-century Italian lighting design and was an early proponent of the practice of industrial design in Italy.
Italo Lupi was an Italian graphic designer and writer.
The ADI Design Museum is a museum in Milan, Italy, which houses the historical collection of the ADI Compasso d'Oro Foundation, as well as temporary exhibitions, public talks and initiatives. It is dedicated to the understanding and promotion of design in Italy and abroad.
