It’s a very special birthday for Kartell, the Italian company known around the world for having transformed plastic – now the anti-green material par excellence – into objects of design. To celebrate this 70th anniversary, a busy calendar of events has been organised around the launch of new technologically innovative products. A must-see is the exhibition at Palazzo Reale, curated by Ferruccio Laviani and Rita Selvaggio, and on from the Salone until early May.

The art side of Kartell doesn’t explore the products themselves so much as the changes to society over the decades and “the relationship of mutual interest between the art world and Kartell”, where design naturally came into contact, whether directly or indirectly, with other languages. The exhibition explores past visions of the “future” using objects, archive materials, installations and performances, documents and prototypes in a dialectic that combines both analytical and formal processes. For Claudio Luti , president of Kartell, president of the Salone del Mobile and member of the new Triennale Board of Directors since late November, this exhibition “is not limited to the world of design and offers a cultural and artistic vision of living through its objects and representation”.