Essenziale Magistretti exhibition in Cusano Milanino

An exhibition opening on April 6 in Cusano Milanino, a town with a population of about twenty thousand in the Milan metropolitan area, focuses on a great master of Italian design, Vico Magistretti and one of his projects, the city’s town hall. The initiative celebrates not only Magistretti the architect but the 50th anniversary of the construction of the town hall, opening for Salone del Mobile 2019 and expanding the range of initiatives focusing on architecture and design that have traditionally surrounded the show in Milan into the city’s hinterland.

"Essenziale Magistretti" is curated by architect Andrea Cassone - CSA Classica and made possible by the support of Fondazione Studio Museo Vico Magistretti, established to promote and preserve the memory of the Milanese architect and designer’s work. The vast amount of documentation included in the exhibition, consisting of material from the foundation’s archives and the results of the curator’s research, is completed with docu-films. Two large sections of the exhibition focus on the figure of architect and designer Vico Magistretti. An excursus into his education, career and projects reveals little-known aspects of the Milanese designer such as Magistretti’s strong ties with Britain: the architect taught in England and was a visiting professor at the Royal College of Art in London. These British ties clearly influenced a number of aspects in Vico Magistretti’s projects, such as the relationship between buildings and their natural environment, skilful, balanced use of greenery, etc.
The vast corpus of works constructed by Vico Magistretti in the sixties and seventies also includes Cusano Milanino town hall. The exhibition looks at the history of the project, underlining its most innovative aspects.

The building was designed in 1963 and built between 1969 and 1971, when the architect was also working on other projects in Milan (in Via Conservatorio and Via San Marco), Meda (Mi) and Framura (La Spezia). All his projects of those years share a number of characteristic traits of the architect’s modus operandi: concreteness, attention to detail and to context, careful study of volume and form.
Cusano town hall was designed to be an ‘open’ public building. It is a “simple” project in which the architect did not use valuable materials to create that aura of monumentality that normally characterises and distinguishes public buildings, but relied solely on the quality of the design: a simple, linear building with open forms and routes, in which we can perceive the interior volumes from the outside and immediately understand the spatial organisation of functions when we go in.
A series of initiatives will accompany the exhibition, including study mornings and educational events open to the general public, drawing attention to an important issue of great relevance in the town today: the possibility of expanding and adapting the building in response to the town’s new requirements.

(Agnese Bifulco)

Title: ESSENZIALE MAGISTRETTI A CUSANO MILANINO
Curated by Andrea Cassone - CSA Classica
Location: Comune di Cusano Milanino - Piazza Martiri di Tienanmen, 1
Dates: 06.04 – 06.05.2019
Opening: Saturday, April 6

Fondazione Vico Magistretti: www.vicomagistretti.it
https://www.comune.cusano-milanino.mi.it/
Instagram: essenziale_magistretti
Hashtag: #essenzialemagistretti #fondazionemagistretti #vicomagistretti #comunecusanomilanino
Facebook: Essenziale Magistretti

---

GALLERY