On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Kartell Museo, the Italian brand renowned for defining contemporary living through avant-garde plastic fabrication has inaugurated its new permanent Archive Space and launched ‘Memories from the Future’, a major temporary exhibition dedicated to the visionary designer Joe Colombo.
“The memories contained in the archives, by virtue of the ability to remember what has been, generate knowledge and culture, representing the foundations of our vision for the future,” says Lorenza Luti, Marketing and Retail Director of Kartell.
Located at the company’s headquarters in Noviglio, south of Milan, the newly opened Archive Space houses over 8,000 physical objects, 700 project archives, 6,000 original drawings, and more than 30,000 historical photographs. Tracing the company’s trajectory from early material experimentation to global design icons, the collection offers an exhaustive repository not only of Kartell’s internal heritage, but of modern Italian industrial design at large.
Memories from the Future: A Three-Part Retrospective
Timed to coincide with Milan Design Week, Memories from the Future re-examines the work of Joe Colombo, whose collaboration with Kartell helped redefine post-war domestic environments. Grounded in Colombo’s belief that the future is built through rigorous experimentation, functional clarity, and active vision rather than passive anticipation, the exhibition is structured across three distinct thematic sectors:
The Future of Yesterday
This section focuses on Colombo’s foundational design methodologies. Centered on the iconic Universale chair—the first adult single-mold injection-molded plastic chair—the displays illustrate how mid-century technical breakthroughs directly informed subsequent generations of production while maintaining a balance between utilitarian necessity and artistic expression.
The Future of Today
Examining the integration of Colombo’s mid-20th-century ideas into contemporary interiors, this space highlights objects whose functional versatility feels inherently modern. Key projects include the Swivel Dome Lamps and the Roto-ashtrays, both exemplifying how modularity and ergonomic practicality can coexist with geometric ingenuity.
The Future of Tomorrow
Framing design as a response to macro-environmental and technological shifts, the final section position’s Colombo’s work within modern discussions on sustainability and systemic longevity. Objects such as the Curved Element Armchair and the KD28 Table Lamp—distinguished by its Space Age aesthetic—demonstrate how historic design precedents continue to offer viable frameworks for addressing future ecological and material challenges.
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