During Milan Design Week, to celebrate the opening of Palazzo Molteni, located on Via Manzoni 9, Molteni&C engages with the city through a special installation titled Letters to Milan, conceived by Studio Klass, inside the Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
“The connection between the Poldi Pezzoli Museum and design is strong. Ours is a museum of decorative arts, always open to dialogue with design. Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli, the founder of the museum, was a sophisticated collector who always paid attention to the artisanal value of objects and the promotion of decorative arts. This collaboration symbolizes the connective power of design, linking the world of art and museums with the everyday lives of each of us.” – Alessandra Quarto, Director of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum
The installation, which occupies the inner courtyard, the Orangery, and the Armory, tells the story of the deep connection between Milan and Molteni&C, a dialogue built over time through architecture, design, and the way of living in the home.
Milan has witnessed the birth and growth of Molteni&C in constant dialogue with leading figures in architecture and design. From Gio Ponti, who left an indelible mark on the brand’s history, to the most recent collaborations, artisanal craftsmanship has evolved into an innovative vision of living. The installation celebrates this legacy by transforming the space into a metaphor for the city—a layered Milan, where history meets the future, solidity meets lightness, and materiality meets transparency. A place where design is culture, and the home is an authentic expression of a way of living that balances memory and contemporaneity.
“The space welcomes visitors into an intimate and sophisticated atmosphere, suggesting the warmth and elegance of a domestic setting. Here, tradition and innovation merge: a suspended metal mesh plays with transparency and light, defining a fluid boundary between public and private. At the center, a totem inspired by Milan’s architectural essence reflects the skyscraper as an iconic element of the city’s skyline and a symbol of its evolution.“ – Studio Klass
Milan and its ever-changing ideals of modernity, interpreted by the architects who shaped this city, dialoguing with design –Gio Ponti, Bruno Morassutti and Angelo Mangiarotti, Aldo Rossi, and Herzog & de Meuron – in a story of space and language, which also lends voice to the words of three authors, Umberto Fiori, Giorgio Fontana and Federica Fracassi, through the writers they have chosen to talk about Milan. An evocation, an aria, a prayer, an homage, a plea, an incantation, a dedication.
The installation is inhabited by the products of the Molteni&C 2025 Collection, a heartfelt tribute to Milan, featuring new pieces that reveal the various layers of the city’s history and innovation, honoring its creative past while also reflecting its future.
Overseen by Vincent Van Duysen, Molteni&C’s creative director, the mood of the Collection has been informed by deep research into the company’s archives, with a focus on exhibitions and projects designed in the 1970s and 1980s. These historical spaces and objects have now been reinterpreted through a 21st-century lens, resulting in a light and dynamic ambience that is perfectly adapted to contemporary life.
In Van Duysen’s vision for the Collection, Molteni&C’s designs provide the ideal scenography for a spacious open-plan apartment in an elegant, residential area of Milan – a reflection of the city’s grand past, as well as the modern aesthetics, details and design excellence that have always defined Molteni&C.
The mood of the Collection plays with the relationship between historical architecture and contemporary cosmopolitanism. In this respect, the Collection offers a perfect reflection of the values of the newly opened Palazzo Molteni in Via Manzoni: a historic space that provides an international hub for design and marks a new chapter in Molteni&C’s history.
The exhibition features Van Duysen’s new designs: the Aria desk and the Linea armchair. These are complemented by pieces from Molteni&C’s new collaborations, which add a fresh and international perspective to the Collection. The Emile sofa, the Maylis, Odile, Lea, and Fleur coffee tables, and the Eugene armchair, all by Christophe Delcourt, as well as the Lia armchair by GamFratesi.
The Collection – and the installation – are also enriched by the return of the Monk chair by Tobia Scarpa, designed in 1973 by Afra and Tobia Scarpa, last produced in 1990, and reintroduced into Molteni&C’s Heritage Collection.
The installation continues in the orangery with a platform showcasing some of the most representative pieces from the new collection: the Monk armchair in coffee oak and leather, the Odile coffee table in Red Lepanto marble, the Linea armchair in leather, and the Penelope console in Burgundy lacquer and coffee oak, signed by Christophe Delcourt.
Inside the Armory, an installation curated by Elisa Ossino unveils, for the first time ever, a a new chapter of the collaboration between Molteni&C, Gio Ponti’s heirs and his Archive, the objects designed by this great maestro, catalysers of a new lifestyle, come alive again in the collection presented here for the first time, the result of a lengthy process of research and prototyping. Hands, Etruscan objects, horses and birds, wooden bottles, trays, flower vases and candleholders all star as main players in a new homescape. Beautiful (im)possible objects.
During Design Week, the installation in the courtyard of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum will also be the stage for three exclusive talks, on April 9th, 10th, and 11th, featuring important figures from the world of design, art, and contemporary culture: Alex Majoli with Tony Chambers, Patrick Tuttofuoco with Maria Cristina Didero, and Denis Dekovic with Francesca Molteni.
These dedicate talks offer unique insights into contemporary design and creativity, exploring the relationship with the city and further enriching the program of events dedicated to the culture of design.
LETTERS TO MILAN
A summoning, a chant, a prayer, a tribute, a plea, a celebration. Letters to Milan is all of this and more. Milan, a global city, a laboratory of unconventional yet pragmatic culture, in which modernity generates works that are both fleeting and unforgettable. A city shaped by master builders who project it into the future. “Milan is a metaphor for love, for everything that changes, for life as it goes on,” sang Baustelle. A cosmopolitan city, with a widespread heritage that is constantly changing.
And so, Molteni&C – which has found a new home in Via Manzoni, the beating heart of the historic city – presents an installation in the courtyard of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum for Design Week. The project is a homage to Milan “and its ever-evolving ideals of modernity”, as Fulvio Irace describes in Milano Moderna. Architecture, Art and the City 1947-2021, expressed through the power of words and images.
Designed by Studio Klass, the installation tells the story of the deep connection between Milan and Molteni&C, a dialogue built over time through architecture, design and the very way that we live. “The space welcomes visitors into an intimate atmosphere, evoking the elegance of a domestic setting,” writes Studio Klass. “Here, tradition and innovation intertwine: a suspended metal mesh plays with transparency, tracing a fluid boundary between public and private, while a central totem, inspired by the city’s architectural skyline, reinterprets the concept of the skyscraper as an iconic element of Milan’s landscape and a symbol of its evolution.”
Skyscrapers – or rather, tall buildings – appear in black and white in the video installation. They look like photographs, but they are images in motion. The stars, however, are the architects who, in collaboration with Molteni&C, have shaped the language of design, weaving together past and present: the master of modernity, Gio Ponti, with his iridescent façades of Palazzo Montedoria (1968–71) and the Torre e Casa Rasini in Porta Venezia (1933–34); Angelo Mangiarotti, who, together with Bruno Morassutti, designed the house in Via Gavirate 27 and the building in Via Quadronno 24, both based on a single compositional principle, yet repeated in multiple variations; Aldo Rossi, with his residential unit in the Gallaratese neighbourhood (1969–70), “the red dinosaur”, where “the building’s walkway embodies a way of life that is immersed in everyday events, domestic intimacy and countless personal interactions”; and Herzog & de Meuron, designers of Porta Volta’s Fondazione Feltrinelli (2008–2016), the gateway to Milan’s historic centre that has redefined an entire district.
“Milan is like the tip of an iceberg. Beneath lies its vast history. You can say ‘Milan, Milan’ over and over, you can try writing it again and again.” So wrote Aldo Nove in Milano non è Milano (Milan is not Milan).
To capture the city’s multifaceted array of voices and perspectives, Doppiozero (a magazine, publishing house, network, and research community), has selected three authors to present the words of other writers regarding Milan. They are Umberto Fiori, musician, writer and poet; Federica Fracassi, actor, author and curator; and Giorgio Fontana, Bagutta Prize-winning novelist.
“A city of stone at first glance, hard and unyielding, yet softened by hidden gardens, cultured and contemplative.” These are the words chosen by Alberto Savinio to describe Milan in his sweeping portrait of the city, Ascolto il Tuo Cuore, Città (I Listen to Your Heart, City).
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