Richard Adler

Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein

Trained as a conservator for modern materials and media at the University of Applied Science in Bern, where he was subsequently employed as an assistant lecturer, he has been a conservator at the Vitra Design Museum since 2006. He is responsible for the establishment of a conservation studio and the upgrading of storage facilities, completing condition surveys and maintenance and treatment for the collection.

Silvana Annicchiarico

La Triennale di Milano

A teacher, critic, researcher and practicing architect, she has taught at the Department of Industrial Design at the Politecnico di Milano. She was assistant director of the monthly design magazine “Modo” from 1998 to 2001, and currently collaborates with several publications. She has a program on Radio 24. The Conservator of the Permanent Collection of Italian Design at the Triennale di Milano, and a member of the scientific committee for the design section, she has conceived and curated many exhibitions and publications in Italy and abroad; the most recent ones include: Non sono una signora. Quando gli oggetti hanno un nome di donna, Animal House. Quando gli oggetti hanno forme e nomi di animali, Il mondo in una stanza. Quando gli oggetti hanno nomi di luoghi (all in 2002), Maestri (Bruxelles, 2003; Tokyo 2006), Dreams. I sogni degli italiani in 50 anni di pubblicità televisiva (2004), Space Age (Milano, 2004), Gaetano Pesce, Il rumore del tempo (2005), the traveling exhibition Design in Italy. 100 Oggetti della Collezione Permanente del Design Italiano (2006), Ettore Sottsass. Disegno teorico (Tokyo, 2007) and the design section of Franco Albini. Zero Gravity (2007).

Francesca Appiani

Museo Alessi, Omegna

(Milan 1966) After graduating in philosophy, she specialized in museology. Through 1997 she worked free lance on projects involving museology and continuing education for museum operators. In 1997 she began her collaboration with Alessi on the creation of a company museum in-house. In 1998 the Museo Alessi was inaugurated. Its museological project is built around a twin function. To be an operating archive, at the service of product concept-design and policy. To be a design collection, which serves several of the typical functions of a museum institution: to conserve and cultivate the cultural heritage of the collections, to conduct scientific research and to promote cultural events. In 2001, as curator of the Museo Alessi, she participated in the foundation of the Museimpresa association, created to gather Italian company museums and archives around the values of business culture. In 2003 she was elected vice-president of the association.

Gabriella Belli

Mart, Rovereto

(1952) Graduated in 1982 with a specialization in the criticism and history of modern and contemporary art, she was commissioned to activate the initial nucleus of a modern and contemporary art museum for the Autonomous Province of Trento at Palazzo delle Albere. Nominated as director of the new museum in 1989, she has been responsible for research and education and many exhibitions – the most recent being: Boldini Zandomenighi, de Nittis (2001), Le Stanze dell’Arte (2002), Montagna, Arte, Scienza, Mito (2003), La Danza delle Avanguardie (2005), Mitomacchina: Arte e design dal 1930 ai giorni nostri (2006) – in addition to a cycle of exhibitions traveling to international museums. She was a commissioner of the Biennale di Venezia (1995 and 2003), a member of the scientific committee of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bolzano, and of the GAM in Bologna; she is a member of the scientific committee for the Center for Italian art and design “Fabrica”. She has taught at the University of Trento. In 2003 she received the Premio Internazionale Civiltà Veneta for her cultural activity and in 2004 the Premio Firenze Donna for management. In 2004 she was invited to be a member of the “Patto per l’arte contemporaneo” commission. President of the National association of Italian contemporary art museums and a member of the Accademia nazionale di San Luca, in 2007 she was nominated by the minister of Culture to be a member of the technical-scientific committee for architectural and urban quality and for contemporary art.

Alba Di Lieto

Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona

(Bologna 1966) A graduate in architecture, she is conservator for the Archivio Carlo Scarpa at the Direzione Civici Musei d’Arte e Monumenti di Verona, and responsible for the conservation and cultivation of the graphic collection for architecture, and the maintenance and restoration of Scarpa’s work at the Museo di Castelvecchio. Curator of several exhibitions including Carlo Scarpa & Castelvecchio (with Richard Murphy and Arrigo Rudi, 1991), the first North American exhibition dedicated to Scarpa, Carlo Scarpa, architecte. Composer avec l’historie (Montréal, 1999), and Carlo Scarpa. Mostre e musei 1944-1976. Case e paesaggi 1972-1978 (2000). She also designs exhibition installations and organizes events for the Musei Civici, such as the exhibition Luigi Caccia Dominioni. Case e Cose da abitare. Stile di Caccia (with Paola Marini and Fulvio Irace, 2002), the first European installation by Peter Eisenman, The Garden of the Lost Steps (2004) and in 2007 the newly reopened rampart-walk at Castelvecchio. From 2002-2005 she participated in the EDF European Design Forum project co-financed by the European Commission. She coordinated the creation of the website www.archiviocarloscarpa.it and in 2006 for the centennial of Scarpa’s birth, she published the catalog I disegni di Carlo Scarpa per Castelvecchio.

Claudia Donà

Fondazione Adi Compasso d’Oro, Milano

A graduate in art history from the Università Statale di Milano, she began her career as a journalist on the pages of the daily newspaper “La Repubblica”; she collaborated with Alessandro Mendini and Franco Raggi in founding “Modo”, a magazine-laboratory for the design avant-garde. She has written for many publications, even as a special envoy to the United States, where she lived and taught between 1984 and 1989. After working as a consultant for the Salone del Mobile in Milan in the fields of communication and culture, in 1992 she became director of the Fondazione Faar-Csar promoting research in architecture, design and technology on themes she had previously developed in her book Design after Modernism (with John Thackara et al., 1988). In 2002 she joined the Fondazione Adi per il Design italiano, with Giulio Castelli she reordered the Collezione Premio Compasso d’Oro, obtaining its “recognition” – by ministerial decree – as a national historic and artistic legacy. She develops its potential, including the nascent Italian Design Museum system, the rating of industrial design as a prior art, and the study of the first official cataloguing form for design. She has conceived and curated exhibitions in Italy and abroad, including: Telematic Ulysses: alla vigilia del Terzo Millennio (Chicago 1986, Milan 1987, Paris 1989); Mobili Italiani 1961-1991. Le varie età dei linguaggi (Triennale di Milano, 1991), Anna Castelli Ferrieri. Architecture and Design (Chicago 1997-98, Madrid 1998, Puebla 1999, Pasadena 1999, Milan 2007), Compasso d’Oro: 50 anni di Design Italiano (Ghent, Belgium 2006).

Marie-Laure Jousset

Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris

After training as an interpreter, and following her studies in art history, she worked for many years as creative director for major companies, then choosing to dedicate herself to the relationships between public institutions and design professionals, rather than the relationship between manufacturers and designers. Nominated by the French minister of Culture Jack Lang, she was the delegated curator for two design competitions – one for office furniture, the other for lighting projects – and was responsible for their subsequent exhibitions: Empire du bureau and Lumières, je pense à vous. In 1988 the director of the Centre de création industrielle/Centre Georges Pompidou, François Burkhardt, entrusted her with the Design department. After the fusion of the Centre de création industrielle with the Musée national d’art moderne, in 1992, she was nominated Chief Conservator and worked on the creation of a design collection, which now counts over 1800 pieces and is on permanent exhibition among the design collections. She has organized and curated many exhibitions, both monographs and thematic exhibitions, including one dedicatted to the work of Philippe Starck, and a retrospective on Charlotte Perriand.

Simona Romano

Kartellmuseo, Noviglio

A graduate of the Politecnico di Milano in 1998, she is active as a curator and conservator of collections and archives involving design. From 1998 to 2001 she worked for the Museo Alessi on reordering the current and historical photographic archives. From 2001 to 2005 she was curator of the Kartellmuseo. She was a member of the board of directors of the national association of company museums, Museimpresa, and was project leader for the museum system “Milano Città del progetto”, and member of a scientific commission created by the Regione Lombardia for the development of a ministerial standard for cataloguing design objects. She is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Product and Communication Design at the Faculty of Design and Architecture of the Università IUAV di Venezia, with a research project of “transculturality and design”. She is also curating the archives and collection of Vico Magistretti.

Corinna Rösner

Die Neue Sammlung, München

(1955) Chief curator and vice director of Die Neue Sammlung (State Museum of Applied Arts and Design, Munich). Studied art history, archaeology and ethnology at the University of Munich and took her Ph.D. in 1988. As a curator at Die Neue Sammlung since 1990.

Béatrice Salmon

Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris

(1960) A graduate in art and archaeology, she later obtained a master’s degree and an advanced studies diploma (DEA) in the same field. Since the Eighties she has had managing roles in several institutions dedicated to culture and art: director of the Fond régional d’art contemporain de Bretagne in Rennes (1984), consultant for the plastic arts for the Direction Régionale des Affaires culturelles de la Région Centre, in Orléans (1987), inspector of artistic creation of the Délégation aux Arts Plastiques in Paris (1992), She was also conservator of the graphic arts cabinet of the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris (1993) and director of the Musée des Beaux Arts in Nancy (1995), for which she created many exhibitions and publications. Nominated “Chevalier” of the Ordre National du Mérite, she became the director of the Musées des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2000 (Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Musée Nissim de Camondo, Musée de la Mode et du textile et Musée de la Publicité).

Deyan Sudjic

Design Museum, London

Director of the Design Museum since 2006, he previously served as Dean of the Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design at Kingston University, Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art, and the Observer newspaper’s design and architecture writer. Founding Editor of Blueprint, a magazine he edited from 1983 to 1996, he was editor of “Domus”, an international magazine of art, architecture and design from 2000 to 2004. For several years he was Visiting Professor at the Academy of Applied Art in Vienna, running a course in design history and theory. He was Director of Glasgow 1999, UK City of Architecture, and in 2002 was Director of the Venice Architecture Biennale. He has published many books, including monographs on the work of the Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo, Ron Arad, design practice Future Systems (2006) and The Edifice Complex (2005). Made an official of the Order of the British Empire in 2005, in 2004 he was awarded the Bicentenary Medal of the Royal Society of Arts for the promotion of design, and was made an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He was appointed as a CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) commissioner in March 2006.

Anna Tonicello

Archivio Progetti, Università Iuav di Venezia

A graduate in architecture at the IUAV in Venice, she attended specialized courses at the Escuela Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura in Barcelona. From 1987 to 1991 she collaborated in the exhibitions, publications and archives of the Gallery of Architecture at the Fondazione Angelo Masieri in Venice and since 1992 she has been the director of the Archivio Progetti at the Università IUAV di Venezia. She has long dealt with the issues involved in the collection and treatment of architectural documents, collaborating in the definition of a standardized form for their description and for cataloguing the project. She is a consultant for the creation of data banks on the archives of architecture for other universities and public institutions. She has published articles on themes involving documentary information and has spoken at many conferences; she has taught professional continuing education courses and training seminars. She was one of the promoters and founders of AAA/Italia (the national association of the archives of contemporary architecture), for which she has served as secretary and as a member of the scientific committee since 1999; since 2002 she has been a member of the executive committee of ICAM (International Confederation of Architectural Museums).

Paul Warwick Thompson

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, New York

Born in Oxford, England (1959), he holds a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Bristol, as well as a master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of East Anglia. A zealous champion of design education, and a former presenter of BBC TV’s education series ‘Techno’, in the late 1980s Thompson worked for the UK’s Design Council, raising awareness of the role of design in the corporate and government arenas. Over the following decade, he played an influential role in advocating for design and technology within the United Kingdom’s national curriculum. His work in the field of design education resulted in his receiving the Honorary Fellow award from the Royal College of Art in 2000. He served as director of the Design Museum in London for eight years; under his leadership admissions rose considerably, as did education group visits. Director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution since 2001, Thompson has established a new vision for the museum, one involving a greater balance between historic, scholarly exhibitions and those focused on contemporary international design. Outside the world of art galleries, Thompson has worked diligently to heighten awareness of the role design plays within an increasingly global society.

Gareth Williams

Victoria and Albert Museum, London

A Curator in the Department of Furniture, Textiles and Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum, specialising in twentieth century and contemporary furniture and product design, Gareth Williams has curated many projects and exhibits, including ‘Ron Arad Before and After Now’ (with Sorrel Hershberg, 2000), ‘Brand.New’ (with Jane Pavitt, 2000), ‘Milan in a Van’ (2002) and ‘Matali Crasset: Unpacking Design’ (2003). In 2004 he curated the Architecture Gallery, a permanent display at the V&A in conjunction with the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects). In 2006 he was part of the team that re-displayed the Europe and America 1800-1900 Gallery, whereas he recently curated a new display of 1990s design to complete the present permanent display in the Twentieth Century Gallery. He has written contributions to numerous books including Brand.New (2000), Branded? (V&A 2000), The Persistence of Craft (2002), Design and Designer: Matali Crasset (2003), The Origin of Things (2003), Black Bazaar: design dilemmas (2003), Simply Droog (2004), Exploring Architecture (2004), and Phaidon Design Classics (2006). He is also the author of The Furniture Machine: furniture since 1990, published in October 2006.

Curators

Francesca Appiani

Museo Alessi, Omegna

Alberto Bassi

Facoltà di Design e Arti, Università Iuav di Venezia

(Milano 1958) He is a historian and critic of industrial design. He teaches the History of Industrial Design at the Faculty of Design and Arts of the Università IUAV di Venezia, where he is also assistant director of the graduate program in Industrial Product Design. He is an editor of “Casabella”, and contributes to many specialized magazines, such as “Auto & Design”, and the Sunday supplement of “Il Sole 24 ore”, the daily financial newspaper. He is also one of the founders and managing director of the web portal design-italia. He conducts research studies for public and private institutions, as a basis for publications and permanent or temporary exhibits. In particular, he has directed the organization of several design project and company archives. The many books he has authored include Giuseppe Pagano designer (with L. Castagno, 1994), Le macchine volanti di Corradino D’Ascanio (with M. Mulazzani, 1999), La luce italiana. Il design delle lampade 1945-2000 (2003), Antonio Citterio industrial design (2004), Design anonimo in Italia (2007).

Rosanna Pavoni

Università dell’Insubria, Como

Art historian. She began her career in museology by working on the opening, and later directing, the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi in Milan through 2002. She is also responsible for the idea behind the museological project of the Museo Adriano Bernareggi Diocesi di Bergamo and of the Museo della Città di Monza, and is currently the scientific director for the museum system of the Province of Como. Since 2002 she has acted as a consultant for the Civic Administration of Monza in the reorganization of the exhibition venues in the city and for the elaboration of the guidelines for the exhibition programs. Her research studies on museology and on home-museums led her to help promote the creation of the Comitato Internazionale Dimore Storiche Museo (DEMHIST) instituted by the International Council of Museums (ICOM/UNESCO), for which she was president from 2003-2006 and for which she has edited the proceedings for the conferences to this day. She teaches Museology at the department of Science of the Cultural and Environmental Heritage at the Università dell’Insubria in Como; her most recent publications on the specific theme of museology include Musei Raccolte Collezioni. Alla scoperta del sistema Museale della provincia di Como (2004), Case Museo a Milano: esperienze europee per un progetto dei rete (with A. Zanni, 2005), Musei. Transformazioni di un’istituzione dall’età moderna al contemporaneo (with P. Marani, 2006).

Raimonda Riccini

Facoltà di Design e Arti, Università Iuav di Venezia

She is a professor at the Faculty of Design and Arts of the Università IUAV di Venezia where she is the Director of the graduate program in Industrial Design (clasDIP) and a member of the faculty board for Doctorate Studies in product design and communication. She is currently assistant director of the magazine “diid - disegno industriale industrial design”. She lectures on the history of industrial design, innovation and technological culture, with a focus on issues of socialization and the communication of technology, including exhibitions and museums. In this field, she was the editor of Imparare dalle cose. La cultura materiale nei musei (Clueb, 2003). She was a member of the scientific committee for the XX Triennale di Milano (2001-2004), curating conventions, exhibitions and publications, including Gli occhiali presi sul serio. Arte, storia, scienza e tecnologie della visione (2002); Design in Triennale 1947-68 (2004, with A Bassi).

Simona Romano

Kartellmuseo, Noviglio

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