An exhibition that, by matter of course, was being considered as necessary (like those books, or movies, acclaimed as necessary by popular demand) since its conception, was presenting  a fundamental issue since the very start: how to get the solemnity of a centennial coexisting with Vico Magistretti’s stubborn anti-solemnity?
Two elements have then come around to disarm such conceptual time bomb. The first is unfortunately connected to history and current chronology: the exhibition opened on the architect’s 100(+1)th birthday, thus neutralizing the round-number psychosis and projecting us straight down the trajectory of Vico’s legacy as something belonging to the present day, still on its way evolving (like everything design, of course). The second is a more curatorial aspect, expressed in the way the exhibition emphasizes the connection between the master and his historical and personal habitat. 

The show in fact is titled Vico Magistretti. Architetto Milanese (Vico Magistretti. Milanese architect), curated by Gabriele Neri and realized with the contribution of Fondazione studio museo Vico Magistretti and Domus Archive for original photographs and published projects. Its thematic approach (developing topics such as The Magistretti Dynasty, Milano: Modernity & Tradition, Vico at the MoMA, The form of plastic, A home for all, Vico and Japan, RossoVico) articulates through models, objects, pictures, articles, channeling the vastly horizontal, intrinsically transversal nature of Magistretti, giving the visitors a chance to explore it in quite an immersive experience.

Whoever should come and enthusiastically join such immersion, after climbing the monumental stairs by Giovanni Muzio and crossing the scenic bridge by Michele De Lucchi, is going to see such parade of contrasts culminating in the single space where an entire world of history and design is condensed.
The surprisingly compact space hosting the exhibition has been smartly interpreted by BINOCLE/Lorenzo Bini, through a blow-up on three fundamental elements of domestic space (the table, the shelf, the hood). tied together by the visual predominance of red, allowing to catch in single glimpses the world of Vico as a whole, a stack of Selene chairs standing on the background of Marina Grande complex, an array of Teti lamps framing the drawings of a hillside villa in Lombardy. 

Such choice in setting design can only enhance the perceivable emphasis on a biographic approach, a close exchange between a constant presence of family history and an endless history of architectural and product design, between deep Milanese roots and the international vocation of connections, travels and projects.

Two contemporary tributes by Konstantin Grcic and Jasper Morrison bring such an immersive synthesis to a close, together with a third one, a sketch by Alessandro Mendini dating back to 2004, holding in its title what we would wish both to the enthusiast guest we met just above, and to anyone approaching the world of design or simply the noble art of domestic living. The foolish (impossible) desire to imitate Magistretti.