After its first stop at the Kartell Museum (from April to September 2025), the exhibition "Memorie dal Futuro. Il design di Joe Colombo per Kartell" (Memories from the Future. The Design of Joe Colombo for Kartell) is now open, in a capsule version, at the ADI Design Museum, the temple of design that celebrates innovation and creativity.
The exhibition path maintains the three mini thematic sections, each of which reflects a different declination of future time, recounting Joe Colombo's projects for Kartell: from the Universale chair, to the curved-element armchair, up to the KD28 lamp, a symbol of durability and a design vision capable of transcending time while maintaining intact value and functionality.

Joe Colombo and Kartell are closely linked to the word 'future' for various reasons, which concern the themes of innovation and experimentation, and which also push a little further, entering the emotional dimension of the inhabited space, those of colour and light, constantly finding themselves halfway between the functionalist and aesthetic vision, always striving towards the new.
Through a series of materials, visionary for the past, current in our present, and certainly suitable for the future, the exhibition displays Colombo's projects for Kartell in three small sections that play with the theme. The first section, "The Future of Yesterday," highlights the pioneering approach of the Universale chair, which paved the way for future generations of seating; the second, "The Future of Today," focuses on lighting and interior design projects, demonstrating how the future imagined yesterday has become part of our daily lives; the third, "The Future of Tomorrow," centered on the curved-element armchair, recounts how certain objects from the past can be symbols of durability, still maintaining their value and functionality intact today.

Delving into the exhibition, we can appreciate the value of the collaboration between Joe Colombo and Kartell, and understand how it marked a fundamental chapter in the history of Italian design. This collaboration was based on a continuous exchange of knowledge and experimentation, in which designer and company shared a common vision on the use of materials and the potential offered by the industry. The exhibition highlights how the projects born from this collaboration, in a handful of years and in a specific historical and productive context, continue to remain relevant, not only for the formal and technological solutions adopted, but also for their ability to suggest new directions to follow.

A special thanks goes to the architect Ignazia Favata, for the precious contribution in making the materials from the Joe Colombo Studio Historical Archive available for the exhibition

The exhibition will be open from 4 to 30 October at the ADI Design Museum, Piazza Compasso d'Oro 1, Milan.
Guided tours on Saturday 11, 18, and 25 October at 6:30 PM (included in the ADI Design Museum entrance ticket).
For reservations: support@adidesignmuseum.org