Alice Rawsthorn, photo by Michael Leckie; Courtesy Antonia Jannone
Antonia Jannone on Gae Aulenti and Milan
July 4 2024
Gae Aulenti's Legacy – episode 3
The exhibition Gae Aulenti (1927 – 2012) is accompanied by a podcast series that explores her impact on architecture and design, and her legacy. The podcast, hosted by British design critic and author, Alice Rawsthorn, traces the evolution of Gae Aulenti through the voices of friends, curators and international architects who knew her personally or through her work. The five episodes focus on different aspects of her relationship with architecture, design, art and performance during the course of her career.
The third episode—Antonia Jannone on Gae Aulenti and Milan—features Alice Rawsthorn in dialogue with the gallerist and longtime friend of Gae Antonia Jannone, whose design and architecture gallery on Milan's Corso Garibaldi has been at the center of Milan's cultural scene for nearly half a century, since 1977.
Antonia has showcased the work of architects such as Leon Krier, Aldo Rossi, and Ettore Sottsass and has helped establish architectural design and set design as an art form. What distinguishes the work of the architects and designers Antonia exhibits is that they all have a unique design language, as evidenced by recent exhibitions by Andrea Branzi, Michele De Lucchi, Vittorio Gregotti, and Alessandro Mendini, many of whom, like Antonia herself, were friends and collaborators of Gae Aulenti.
Piazzale Cadorna, photo by Guia Sambonet
"Cadorna with Needle, Thread and Knot is more than a piazza. For Gae it was a way of communicating"
Antonia Jannone
Perspective of Piazzale Cadorna, photo Gae Aulenti Archive
Antonia Jannone began her career as a gallery owner in 1977, focusing on an artistic expression that until then had not found space: architecture. She realized the first solo shows of architects such as Leon Krier, Ernesto Bruno Lapadula, Giovanni Muzio, Aldo Rossi, Ettore Sottsass, and Stefan Wewerka.
Alice Rawsthorn—born in Manchester and based in London—is an award-winning design critic and author of books on design, including Hello World: Where Design Meets Life, Design as an Attitude and, most recently, Design Emergency: Building a Better Future. She is a co-founder with Paola Antonelli of the Design Emergency project to investigate design's role as a force for positive change. In all her work, Alice champions design's potential to address complex social, political and ecological challenges.
Credits
Hosted by: Alice Rawsthorn
Recording and sound editing: 731 Lab
Produced by: Triennale Milano
On the occasion of the exhibition: Gae Aulenti (1927-2012)
