Alchimia @ Bröhan Museum & ADI Design Museum

Alchimia

The Italian group Alchimia revolutionised the design worldwide.
In the late 1970’s, this avant-garde collective dared to make a radical break with functionalism and ushered in a new era of design.
With bright colours, inexpensive materials and a pinch of irony, the designers transformed everyday objects into provocative works of art.
Alchimia’s guiding principle was to counter insensitive mass production with individual and sensual unique pieces – even at the expense of practicality.
Its visionary power inspired an entire generation of designers and made Alchimia a legend in design history.

Members

Paola Albani / Francesca Alinovi / Gian Mario Andreani / Paola Ardissone / Massimo Audiello / Gae Aulenti / Gianfranco Barberi / Benedetta Barzini / Mario Bellini / Giovanna Benzi / Gaston Bertin / Damiano Biella / Donatella Biffi / Achille Bonito Oliva / Pier Carlo Bontempi / Andrea Branzi / Remo Buti / Valerio Castelli / Achille Castiglioni / Piero Castiglioni / Carla Capalbo / Lucia Cappelli / Sergio Cappelli / Stefano Carmi / Carla Ceccariglia / Stefano Casciani / Nives Ciardi / Sandro Chia / Francesco Clemente / Ave e Sandro Colbertaldo / Phoenix Color /Tina Corti / Coop Himmel(b)lau / Massimo Costa / Enzo Cucchi / Riccardo Dalisi / Almerico De Angelis / Nicola De Maria / Johannes Dinnebier / Michele De Lucchi / Marina De Marchi / Margherita Di Girolamo / Giacinto Di Pietrantonio / Claudia Donà / Gianpaolo Fabris / Beatrice Felis / Stefano Fera / Fiorucci Dxing / Piero Gaeta / Maria Teresa Galli / Gabriella Gatti / Giacomo Ghidelli / Anna Gili / Milton Glaser / Michael Graves / Bruno Gregori / Giorgio Gregori / Frank Gross / Adriana Guerriero / Alessandro Guerriero / Walter Garro / Maria Christina Hamel / Claudia Hammers / Reiner Haegele / Angela Hareiter / Hans Hollein / Fulvio Irace / Isia-Firenze Arata / Isozaki / Guido Jannon / Charles Jenks / Eva Kulakowska / Sandra Kessler / Jeremy King / Yumiko Kobayashi / Ugo La Pietra / Anna Lombardi / Marianne Lorenz / Magazzini Criminali / Bepi Maggiori / Vico Magistretti / Giannino Malossi / Enzo Mari / Cristina Marino / Maria Grazia Mattei / Maria Grazia Mazzocchi / Richard Meier / Alessandro Mendini / Davide Mercatali / Mario Merz / Claire Misese / Monique Mizrahil / Nadia Morelli / Massimo Morozzi / Francesca Morpurgo / Bruno Munari / Alex Mocika / Paola Navone / Ugo Nespolo / Occhiomagico / Sinya Okayama / Cecilia Oliva / Padiglione Italia / Mimmo Paladino / Pasquale Palmieri / David Palterer / Ornella Papaleo / Mauro Panzeri / Paolo Pedrizzetti / Lorenza Peregrini / Javier Perez / Massimo Podestà / Gio Ponti / Lisa Licitra Ponti / Paolo Portoghesi / Daniela Puppa / Franco Quadri / Barbara Radice / Franco Raggi / Patrizia Ranzo / Prospero Rasulo / Arturo Reboldi / Pierre Restany / Rosa Maria Rinaldi / Franco Maria Ricci / Aldo Rossi / Cinzia Ruggieri / Jean Rouzaud / Caterina Saban / Silvio San Pietro / Denis Santachiara / Kazuko Sato / Patrizia Scarzella / Fabrizia Scassellati / Luigi Serafini / Marisa Silvagna / Ettore Sottsass / Speciale / Philippe Starck / Frank Stella / Studio Ombra / Studio Stilema / Stanley Tigerman / Oliviero Toscani / Oscar Tusquets / Emilio Tricerri / Barbara Uttini / Bob Venturi / Luigi Veronesi / France Vogelaar / Gerda Vossaert / Wistthorpe / Kazumasa Yamashita / Marco Zanuso jr. / Ferry Zayadi

Exhibition

Alchimia: “The Revolution of Italian Design” is the first complete retrospective dedicated to the Milanese collective founded by Alessandro and Adriana Guerriero in 1976 and active until 1992.

After its premiere at the Bröhan Museum in Berlin from April to September 2025, , curated by François Burkhardt and Tobias Hoffmann, the exhibition will come to the city where Studio Alchimia was born. This reimagined and expanded version features a new display concept designed by Alessandro Guerriero. Designed as a poetic and visionary device, the new display invites visitors to step onto the “tappeto zattera” (“carpet-raft”), as Guerriero calls it—a symbolic structure that suspends the everyday and immerses the audience in the utopian and experimental spirit that made Alchimia a singular phenomenon in the Italian design landscape.

Alchimia emerged during a period of profound social and cultural change. It became a workshop of freedom and cross-pollination where design, architecture, visual arts, fashion, music, and performance intertwined to shape a new, ironic, and poetic language.

Through the theory of “banal design,” the group overturned the rules of functionalism and industrial aesthetics, restoring design’s narrative, symbolic, and interpretive power.

The exhibition features over 150 works, including objects, furniture, sketches, photographs, paintings, and videos, which trace the collective’s history and lasting impact on contemporary visual culture.
A 400-page, trilingual catalog edited by François Burkhardt and Tobias Hoffmann accompanies the retrospective and is co-published by the Bröhan Museum and the ADI Design Museum.

The exhibition is held under the joint patronage of German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Italian President Sergio Mattarella.