Unknown Pleasures

#51 The exhibition curated by Leo Guerra and Cristina Quadrio at the Galleria del Credito Valtellinese occupies a fascinating space among the new ideas at Design Week. #salone2015

A desire to promote and allow visitors to explore three major furniture-design collections linked to Italian excellence lies behind the “Unknown Pleasures” exhibition, organised by the Fondazione Gruppo Credito Valtellinese with ENAIP at Palazzo delle Stelline.

In all, the exhibition route presents approximately 50 Rationalist and Art Nouveau designs selected by the curators, Leo Guerra and Cristina Quadrio. The discontinued pieces and furniture prototypes that never made it into production range from Terragni’s furnishings for the Casa del Fascio in Como to a bar stool by Asnago and Vender, Terragni’s pieces for the Sant’Elia kindergarten and others for the Bocconi University by Giuseppe Pagano, as too designs by Gae Aulenti, Umberto Riva and Franco Albini. A separate chapter is devoted to Bruno Munari and his children’s bookcase with a tubular metal frame, chair for the briefest of visits and funicular bookshelf, hung on the wall like a picture.

In an exhibition within the exhibition, the famous pieces are flanked by (and inspired) eight modified – sometimes to the point of becoming useless – everyday objects designed by Leo Guerra and Cristina Quadrio and made by ENAIP students in Cantù.