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699 Superleggera chair by Gio Ponti – Cassina iMaestri Collection
Esosoft system by Antonio Citterio – Cassina
Milan, 20 June 2024 – At the XXVIII Compasso d’Oro ceremony held on June 20th at the ADI Design Museum in Milan, the iconic chair by Gio Ponti 699 Superleggera was awarded the Compasso d’Oro Career Award, while the Esosoft system by Antonio Citterio received an Honourable Mention.
On the 70th anniversary of the prestigious world design award, the ADI – Association for Industrial Design awarded the timeless icon by Gio Ponti, which has become a symbol of Italian design.
Regarded by the master himself as one of his three masterpieces, together with the Pirelli Tower in Milan and the Concattedrale of Taranto, the chair is an emblem of perfection and balance between solidity and lightness. The model has been produced non-stop by Cassina since 1957 and is the fruit of the master’s research and the experimental ability and expertise of the company and its carpenters.
This important recognition marks the entry of the 699 Superleggera chair in the ADI Compasso d’Oro Historical Collection and represents the fifth Compasso d’Oro won by Cassina since 1954, after the mod.683 chair by Carlo de Carli (1954), the Soriana model by Afra and Tobia Scarpa (1970), the Maralunga model by Vico Magistretti (1979) and the company itself, which was among the winners of the award in 1991 “for its innovative role on the Italian cultural and manufacturing scene and being a forerunner in the international opening of its production as well as having contributed to the overall enhancement of design culture through its activities”.
Among the products that were assigned an Honourable Mention by the jury was also Esosoft by Antonio Citterio, awarded for the advanced and conscious design of the model. The debut project by the architect for Cassina, this system designed for the living area is characterised by its elegant and timeless design which draws upon contemporary production techniques.
Thanks to the in-depth work of research and development carried out by Cassina, materials such as polyurethane with a percentage of polyols derived from biological sources and recycled PET wadding for the cushions, introduced as standard in all new upholstered products, have been implemented. A further confirmation of Cassina’s continuous commitment to adopt an approach oriented towards greater sustainability.
ABOUT COMPASSO D’ORO ADI
Established in 1954, the ADI Compasso d’Oro Award is the oldest but above all the most authoritative world design award. The brainchild of Gio Ponti, it was organized for years by the La Rinascente department store in order to highlight the value and quality of Italian design products then in their infancy. It was later donated to ADI, which has been in charge of its organization since 1958, overseeing its impartiality and integrity.
The more than 350 projects awarded in more than sixty years of the prize’s life, together with the nearly two thousand selected with an Honorable Mention, are collected and preserved in the Historical Collection of the ADI Compasso d’Oro Prize, the management of which has been entrusted to the ADI Foundation, set up for this purpose by the ADI in 2001.
The Compasso d’Oro prize is awarded on the basis of a pre-selection carried out by ADI’s Permanent Design Observatory, made up of a committee of experts, designers, critics, historians, specialized journalists, members of ADI or external to it, all of whom are continuously engaged in collecting, year after year, information and evaluating and selecting the best products, which are then published in the ADI Design Index annuals.
Through an initiative that is unprecedented in the field of international design, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage-Regional Superintendence for Lombardy, by Decree of April 22, 2004, declared the Historical Collection of the ADI Compasso d’Oro Award to be of “exceptional artistic and historical interest,” consequently including it in the national heritage.
www.adi-design.org/compasso-d-
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