We start with the new Managing Director of 3M and the 12 Politecnico’s Alumni and Alumnae in AD’s list of the 100 best designers
We open 2024 with 12 architects and designers, 12 talents from the world of design. They are on AD - ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST Italia's list of the 100 best architects and designers from around the world. Watch out for them in the coming months: some are superstars while others might sound new to non-insiders.
Among them are: ACPV, an architecture firm founded by Alumni Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel which is known for its unconventional aesthetics and taking on challenges in a wide variety of fields (the firm has just set up two new specialised units: ACPVIDEO for video production and ACPVX for digital design consultancy); Droulers Architecture, a Milan-based firm founded by Alumna Nathalie Droulers (graduated in architecture in 1996) and her sister (who studied at the New York School of Design); Hannes Peer, an architect from Bolzano who graduated from Politecnico di Milano in 2002; Mario Bellini, founder of the design and architecture firm of the same name, who graduated in architecture in 1959 from Politecnico di Milano (where he had Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Gio Ponti, and Piero Portaluppi as professors) and has received uncountable recognitions. To refresh your knowledge of ‘Made in Polimi history’, see the story of the legendary 'Perottina': Olivetti Programma 101, the first Personal Computer in history, which we have told you about here. Then there is, of course, Patricia Urquiola, Architecture 1989 Alumnae, who has taken the deep empathic connection she puts into her designs from her master Achille Castiglioni. Piero Lissoni, another great Alumnus of Politecnico, graduated in Architecture in 1985: his name recurs several times each year in the pantheon of design. Alumnus and senator Renzo Piano, who graduated from Politecnico di Milano in 1964 and has been a key figure in the international architecture of the last forty years. Storage Milano, an architecture and design firm founded in Milan in 2002 by Alumni architects Barbara Ghidoni, Marco Donati and Michele Pasini. And finally, there is 2050+, an interdisciplinary Milan-based agency founded by Alumnus (Architecture 2005) Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli.
AND SPEAKING OF ACHIEVEMENTS...
Here’s a piece of news from 2023 that we didn't get around to telling you about: chemical engineer Laura Galli is the new Managing Director of 3M Italia, a position she will be taking on alongside her current role as Vice President EMEA for the Personal Safety division, which she has held in the company since 2022. Galli has a wealth of experience in the company and this has led her to take on increasingly important roles, both national and international, in the various sectors in which 3M operates, from industrial to health and consumer markets. In 2021 we interviewed her for the book Alumnae: Ingegnere e Tecnologie (Alumnae: Woman Engineers and Technologies): she told us about her path, which started from Politecnico di Milano, and how he decided to be an engineer.
