“The cabins represented a completed arehitecture, but they also existed very much in the present, aligned along the sand and the white streets on timeless, unchanging mornings. I admit that in this sense they represent a particular aspect of form and happiness: youth. Yet this aspect is not essential, although it is bound up with my love for summers spent by the sea.” These are the words written by Aldo Rossi in one of the various passages of his "A Scientific Autobiography" (1981) in which he mentions the Cabina dell’Elba. The famous wardrobe is one of the best-known examples of the constant dialogue between architecture and design in the Milanese architect’s practice: starting from the cabins he encountered as a child on the beaches of the island of Elba, Rossi retains all the original evocative features—the tympanum on the pediment, the vertical striped decoration, the parallelepiped shape—but transforms them into a piece of furniture, a cabin wardrobe that preserves the memory of the sea within it. The first prototype was produced in 1980 with Molteni & Co. in four copies, and just two years later, Cabina dell'Elba became part of the production of Bruno Longoni's atelier in Cantù.

The Bricola Veneziana, designed by Federica Marangoni in 1971 on commission from Gio Ponti for the Euro-Domus in Turin, is a lamp-sculpture inspired by the nautical structures composed of wooden poles that mark the Venetian lagoon canals. Originally designed as a light installation on a mirrored floor, the first version was made of Plexiglas sprayed with white polyester and consisted of a tall central cylinder with three fluorescent tubes, connected to five oval conical arms, all held together by a black ring. Subsequently, fifty Bricola lamps were made in Murano glass for the Domus Center in Milan – such as the example now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Italian Design at the Triennale di Milano – then produced from 1980 by I3 in Salzano. The lamp, in white striated lattimo glass, was produced continuously for over twenty years in table, floor, and wall versions, rightfully entering the pantheon of Italian design icons.

In 2025, one of Italy's most popular ice creams, Coppa del Nonno, will celebrate its 70th anniversary. Produced by Motta since the mid-1950s, in 1973 Salvatore Gregorietti – master of Italian graphic design and co-founder of the Unimark studio together with Massimo Vignelli, Bob Noorda, Franco Mirenzi, and Mario Boeri – designed new packaging for this ice cream, helping to redefine its visual identity in a lasting way. The project was born from a refined synthesis of industrial design and visual communication: the brown cup, with its unmistakable silhouette, recalls that of an espresso cup. The small protruding handle evokes its daily ritual, transforming it into a recognizable, familiar object of use, charged with emotional value.

Perhaps not everyone knows that the beach inflatables that swarm Italian beaches, with all due respect to minimalists, have an illustrious ancestor: the Blow inflatable armchair. Designed in 1967 by Jonathan De Pas, Donato D’Urbino, Paolo Lomazzi, and Carla Scolari, and produced by Zanotta, this chair is the first pneumatic design object in Italy. Lightweight and portable, made of high-frequency welded transparent PVC, it inflates with a simple pump and disappears once deflated, marking a break with the static nature and heaviness of traditional bourgeois furniture. Designed for a young and modern audience, it was presented at the 1968 Salone del Mobile and became a symbol of pop and radical design, an expression of a new free and ironic domestic culture. Its formal simplicity and innovative plastic material made it a manifesto object, capable of synthesizing the spirit of the years straddling two decades.

Atelier LUMA, with the Algae Platform project launched in 2017, has set up a bio-laboratory to study and promote algae from the Camargue, a wetland area where the Rhone River meets the Mediterranean Sea. The aim is to answer the question: how can algae become tools for transition in bioregions? In this context, as part of the transnational research program Algae Géographies (2018–2020), which aims to transform local resources into biomaterials using techniques such as extrusion, 3D printing, and seaweed paper production, the Algae Geographies (2019) collection of glasses and carafes was created by Eric Klarenbeek and Maartje Dros for Atelier LUMA. The objects, now part of the MoMA collection, are 3D printed with an entirely bio-based material, obtained by mixing microalgae and plant-based biopolymers, as an alternative to fossil-based plastics.

“Superonda affirmed the complete autonomy of the piece of furniture from the architecture that contained it and from the formal tradition of the sofa,” says Andrea Branzi, who, together with Gilberto Corretti, Paolo Deganello, and Massimo Morozzi, founded the Archizoom Associati collective in Florence in 1966. Superonda is the first sofa made without the traditional supporting structure, and it is also one of the Florentine group's best-known designs, as well as a milestone in the history of Italian design. As its name suggests, Superonda evokes the dynamism of a sea wave, with a structural system consisting of two undulating elements carved from a single block of polyurethane, separated by an S-shaped curve: the two waves fit together and overlap, allowing for different configurations that transform the sofa into a chaise longue or bed. Produced by Poltronova, it arrived in New York in 1972 for the MoMA exhibition “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” and today the Florentine company still pays homage to the original spirit of the project with new versions and patterns.

Between 1925 and 1927, Irish architect and designer Eileen Gray designed the Transat Chair—also known as the “Transatlantic Chair”—for the terrace of her Villa E.1027 in Cap Martin, on the French Riviera, between Monte Carlo and Menton. The name “Transat” refers to the transatlantic liners of the time, the intention being to evoke the experience of sea travel, inspired by the deck chairs on ships. The side structure is made of wood, characterized by rigorous geometries, tenon joints, and chrome supports, construction elements that emphasize the precision craftsmanship of the design, and an adjustable pivot headrest for flexible comfort. The Transat Chair was also chosen by Eckart Muthesius to furnish the Maharajah of Indore's palace during the same period, confirming its international appeal.

In the 1980s, Frank Gehry began exploring the sculptural potential of light: his Fish Lamps were created in 1983 on commission from Formica Corporation to promote ColorCore plastic laminate. After accidentally breaking a sample, Gehry was struck by the similarity of the fragments of this material to fish scales. From there, the Canadian-born, naturalized American architect developed a series of lamps built on fish-shaped wire frames, covered with hand-glued fragments of ColorCore. The first ones were exhibited in 1984 at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, followed by international exhibitions. Each lamp is a unique piece, halfway between art and design: curved and dynamic shapes, warm light, and organic textures create a synergy between material, movement, and marine imagery. For Gehry, fish are a perfect, organic, primitive form, free from the rigidity of traditional architectural geometry. They recur as a symbol in many of his works, from the sculpture El Peix (1992) located on the Barcelona seafront to the fluid, iridescent surfaces of the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, and the Marqués de Riscal hotel.

“If you throw something into the sea, the sea (after an unspecified and indeterminable period of time) will return it to you sculpted, refined, smoothed, shiny or polished depending on the material, and also wet, because this makes the colors more brilliant.” Not a true design object, but a small collector's book that describes the sea as a patient craftsman, “The Sea as a Craftsman” is a poetic and conceptual publication by Bruno Munari, part of the series “The Sea as a Craftsman.” Not a real design object, but a small collector's book that describes the sea as a patient craftsman, “The Sea as a Craftsman” is a poetic and conceptual publication by Bruno Munari, part of the “Block Notes” series created by the Milanese artist and designer for Corraini. In a few essential sentences accompanied by light images, Munari invites us to look at the sea not only as a natural environment, but as a metaphor for design: it works by subtraction, smoothing, simplifying, transforming every object into something new. The book encapsulates the essence of Munari's poetics, where art, design, and nature come together in an idea of humble, intelligent, and patient doing.

The moscardino is a mollusk very similar to the octopus, which inhabits the Mediterranean coast. Designers Giulio Iacchetti and Matteo Ragni saw its tentacles as the prongs of a fork and its head as the rounded profile of a spoon: this gave birth to Moscardino, a multi-purpose piece of cutlery that creates a perfect reversible relationship between the two utensils, responding to changes in contemporary conviviality, eating standing up, quickly or informally. Initially created for Pandora Design in Mater-Bi—a biodegradable bioplastic made from corn starch—Moscardino won the Compasso d'Oro award in 2001. Its fame grew further thanks to its inclusion in the permanent collection of the MoMA in New York, and in 2022 it was relaunched by Alessi with a stainless-steel reissue.