The establishment of research centers and archives open to the public always heralds positive news, offering opportunities to expand one's knowledge and cultivate new skills.
If you find yourself in Milan for fashion week or a visit, be sure to explore the Triennale's new research hub, Cuore (meaning "Heart" in Italian), unveiled this week (opening hours: Tuesday - Sunday, 11am - 8pm). Located on the ground floor of the Palazzo dell'Arte, built by Giovanni Muzio in 1933, Cuore spans 400 square meters and includes a restored modernist staircase by Muzio, now serving as an installation within the research center.
Cuore serves three primary functions: research, access to archives and collections, and development. It houses the revived Triennale Research Center, founded by Giuseppe Pagano in 1935 and active until 1990. This center will conduct scientific studies on contemporary issues for future Triennale programs and foster partnerships with universities.
Besides, visitors will be able to access archives documenting the International Exhibitions and Triennale's activities from 1923 to today, with documents, press articles, collections of posters, drawings and plans, architectural models, and other assorted materials, including over 30,000 photographs and more than 2,000 film and audio recordings.
The institution also preserves collections by a variety of designers including Alessandro Mendini, Cinzia Ruggeri, Ettore Sottsass and Nanni Strada. Last but not least, Cuore serves as a platform for development, dissemination of information and discussion.
The concept and the architectural and exhibition design of the space was developed by AR.CH.IT Luca Cipelletti: the centre space features LessLess tables by UniFor, while the right wall incorporates display cases, cabinets and shelves and the left wall features (at the time of writing) a video installation devoted to the Triennale International Exhibitions, from the 1923 one to that planned for 2025.
One of the display cabinets currently features pieces by Cinzia Ruggeri, all of them fun, quirky and still definitely fashionable - a multi-layered yellow dress (the yellow dress echoes memories of another similar dress that Ruggeri designed for Matia Bazar's singer Antonella Ruggiero in 1983), a green necklace and pale pink shoes, all characterised by Ruggeri's iconic sculptural staircase / ziggurat motif, and one of Ruggeri's bejeweled bulbs (a way to elevate the humble bulb with a cute beaded design that "dressed it up").
The cabinet is a due tribute and a great acknowledgement that arrives posthumously (would it have happened if she were still alive, considering that the Triennale largely ignored her until her death?) and that will conjure up in some of the people who knew Ruggeri, Tacitus' words "invisa primo, postremo amatur" ("at first despised, in the end cherished.").
For the Triennale, maybe this is a sort of revenge cabinet to show London's V&A that they may have scooped Ruggeri's "Homage to Lévi Strauss dress", but that a design institution in Italy actually preserves a few of her pieces.
The cabinet is a great way for new generations to see her work, but also to ponder about the fact that too many women in design are often underestimated or underappreciated, they often risk of being erased from the history of design and at times get discovered (or rediscovered) after they die.
Food for thought for all of us, so use this research center wisely, conducting your own explorations in a variety of fields and always going in-depth in your research subject. And if you pass in front of Cinzia Ruggeri's cabinet, do take a selfie in front of it, and bring her legacy in the present to project her in the future: because that's the dimension that women who were ahead of their times but who did not align in their lives with traditional historical narratives, should inhabit.
Image credits for this post
All images courtesy of La Triennale, Milan
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