Concept
40 years 40 books presents a collection of the volumes on art, design and architecture, conceived, edited, written and published by Stefano Casciani – internationally known as one of the most important popularizers of design culture – in more than 40 years of an intense activity as a designer and writer, for which he has received numerous awards, including the 2001 ADI Compasso d’Oro Award.
Conceived by the Author himself, set up from an idea by Maurizio Lai Architects, the exhibition is exceptional document of important publications-almost all in Italian and English-with some rarities that have reached cult status as Industrial Art. The drawing of Danese’s production, considered by collectors and scholars as the catalogue raisonné of works by Enzo Mari, Bruno Munari and many others for Bruno Danese and Jacqueline Vodoz: but it is also meant to be a tribute to the epic of all great Italian and international design, which Casciani has experienced firsthand since the late 1970s, when very young after his studies at Sapienza and ISIA in Rome he moved to Milan, at the urging of critic and mentor Renato Pedio, called as freelance editor of domus by Alessandro Mendini – who had just succeeded Gio Ponti as editor of the magazine.
Accompanying the exhibition is an original catalog conceived by Casciani with graphic designer Giuseppe Franceschino, which presents the collection of volumes in the exhibition with commentary texts and accurate bibliographical indications, with a dual identity as a manifesto/guide, in the line of that modernist Heraclitea enantiodromia with which the philosopher of the project Davide Borsa titles his critical text. Completing the presentation are writings by Alessandro Mendini, Massimiliano Fuksas and Emilio Ambasz, excerpts from the Stefano Casciani monographic exhibition catalog. MONUMENTS. Objects and Subjects 1979-2003, dedicated to Casciani precisely by Bruno Danese and Jacquelin Vodoz in the beautiful spaces of the Vodoz Danese Foundation in Milan.
From Casciani’s first volume published in 1984 Furniture as Architecture. The Design of Zanotta’s Production to the most recent critical monographs on Gio Ponti (Taschen 2021), Antonio Citterio (Silvana 2023) and Piero Lissoni (Rizzoli New York 2023) flows in the exhibition the sharp critical and narrative vein of one of the most important Italian authors, at the same time observer and protagonist of an unrepeatable history (and actuality) of design culture.
Concept and curation _ Stefano Casciani for ADI Design Museum
Layout_ Maurizio Lai Architects
Graphics_ Giuseppe Franceschino
Critical text _ Davide Borsa
In collaboration with the magazine _ disegno. the new industrial culture
