Alias is the protagonist with the Manzù armchair at MAUTO - Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile in Turin.

On the occasion of the exhibition "DNA. I GENI DELL'AUTOMOBILE NELL'INDUSTRIAL DESIGN", curated by Giosuè Boetto Cohen, Alias will be the protagonist with the Manzù armchair, a re-edition of the historic project by Pio Manzù, a brilliant protagonist of Italian car design.From Tuesday 29 November 2022 to Sunday 26 February 2023, MAUTO - Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile di Torino.

A double exhibition realised by MAUTO - Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile di Torino and ADI Design Museum - Compasso d'Oro di Milano: two exhibition venues to tell the story of the relationship between industrial design and car design, the Milanese school and the Turin school, two cities that look at each other in a way that is not always linear. And it all starts with a special anniversary: fifty years ago, MoMA - New York's Museum of Modern Art - decided to include in its permanent collection a car - a masterpiece: the Cisitalia 202. In Milan until Sunday, 8 January 2023 - a red Cisitalia 202, identical to the one in MoMA's collection is on display in the Compasso d'Oro gallery, in a display that evokes the MoMA of the 1970s.In Turin, where a large space is dedicated to the Cisitalia 202 in the permanent exhibition itinerary, the exhibition investigates the 'design/car design' relationship by displaying for the first time a selection of works by the greatest car designers, when they explored different fields. The itinerary consists of ten exhibition islands, each dedicated to a car designer: among the works by Rodolfo Bonetto, Giorgetto Giugiaro, Italdesign, Paolo Martin, Pininfarina, Giovanni Savonuzzi, Franco Scaglione, Tom Tjaarda, stand out the works by Pio Manzù, including the re-edition by Alias of the seat designed for the Rinascente clearly derived from car design. The exhibition continues with five tributes to the work of masters Achille Castiglioni, Marco Zanuso, Toshiyuki Kita, Ron Arad and Peter Raacke related in various ways to car design.  The visit concludes with five cars awarded the Compasso d'Oro and a reflection on the motivations of the jury. Manzù is an armchair composed of a supporting shell in compact polyurethane moulded with polyurethane foam and a cast aluminium base, proposed with an elegant leather cover. Entering the collection in 2011, this project is configured as an operation of design culture, through which Alias discovers profound affinities with the figure of Pio Manzù. One of the first to conceive the man-machine relationship in terms of safety and well-being, beyond pure functionality. A true pioneer of ergonomics, thanks to his design rigour and mastery of technology.

Ph. Credits Giuliano Berti