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One of the most authoritative experts in systems and integrated circuit design, not to mention an international pioneer in computing, had his start at the Politecnico di Milano. His career kicked off with a trauma at the drawing board. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli - an alumnus of Electronic Engineering who graduated in 1971 - celebrates 50 years since his graduation this year and tells us how it all began...

I was a real mess: I had got to the point that for the drawings they gave us to do at home, I enlisted my mother’s help. She was an artist and I still remember her - now I look back and laugh, but at the time I was in despair - helping me with a drawing of a facility in perspective, as all the while I kept thinking “I’m never going to manage it!”. And I was nearly right. In my first Drawing 1 exam, the assistant walked over to me, looked at my work and said, dishearteningly: “Sangiovanni, what are you doing at the Politecnico? You can’t even draw”.

In the Drawing 1 exam, we had to draw a trampoline in perspective on the drafting machine, but five minutes before handing it in I realised that I had run out of paper... and I completed the drawing on the desk. That time, I was one of just five people who failed out of the 2000 people who took the exam.

In the Drawing 2 exam, meanwhile, they gave you a mechanical part to draw, picked at random out of a hat. Mine was an oil sump. I did the drawing, and it even came out pretty well... I was nearly finished... and then I took the piece and turned it upside down to take a look at it. But guess what was in the oil sump? Oil, obviously. A single drop of black oil dripped onto my paper. Failed again. Professor Zucchelli - Professor of Drawing and all-round great person - took my case to heart and in September, gave me private drawing lessons in his office. In the end, I managed to earn a solid 28, and then didn’t want to hear another word about it for the rest of my life. Since then, I have built up my career in a way that ensures that the graphic side of all my projects is done on the computer!

In my day, we had professors who were masterful thinkers. One whom I remember was Giuseppe Grandori, who taught Construction Science, which didn’t really have much to do with my course of study, but I followed his teaching meticulously because his lectures were splendid, both in terms of technical content and for their implications on engineering in a wider sense. Given that he was 50 years ahead of his time, even back then he was already talking about the ethical value of the decisions that you make in engineering - how any decision you make has an impact on people’s lives. 

Nowadays, this has become quite the burning issue all over the world. And then there was Mario Silvestri, Professor of Technical Physics. I admired him a great deal because, aside from being an excellent chemical physicist, he was also a renowned historian, widely considered to be the leading expert on World War I. My career is also rooted in these lessons in culture and ethics - lessons that could only be found at the Poli - not to mention Francesco Carassa’s lessons, which were perhaps the ones that drove me to seek out industrial values in my inclination for theory.

I remember the Department fondly. The professor who supervised my thesis was named Vito Amoia: in a way, he was the one who would ultimately determine what I would do ‘when I grew up’. Amoia had noticed that my classmate Santomauro - who became one of my best friends - and I were both interested in a university career, so he asked us to teach the exercises in his Network Theory course.

That’s how we ended up as assistants in the fourth year and I realised that I really enjoyed teaching, but I didn’t feel that I was any good at it: in fact, I thought I was pretty terrible. In a way, this experience taught me that in everything, you have to really commit yourself and make all the sacrifices until you reach a satisfactory level.

In fact, after having taught since 1976 at Berkeley, I had my lectures filmed and studied ways to make my exposition more fluid and engaging. As a result, in 1981 I won the “Distinguished Teaching Award” at the University of California, Berkeley: the most prestigious teaching award at my university.

But the thing I remember most proudly is my triumph in a much less formal competition: throwing paper aeroplanes from the top floor of the Nave building, a competition that took place before the afternoon exercises in the two-year course.

 "Venetia with the Cinema Festival and Milan with Design will show the world that Italy is at the forefront of the opening post-pandemic: our country is the only one that at the moment is able to react and challenge the future. We mush be very proud as it is an unique moment in time."

Speaking to Corriere della Sera Stefano Boeri , architect and Alumnus of Politecnico di Milano describes Supersalone , the new edition of the Salone del Mobile of Milan, of which he is the curator, which for this exceptional return will be presented with a new name and a new look.

"The "Supersalone" will be the first major Italian trade fair event after the outbreak of the pandemic. Is called Super because it will be so good that cannot be missed and because it will show together for the first time the great design brands, young makers, international schools, great design icons, the greatest Italian chefs and many main characters of the art and architecture scene. […]. “Supersalone” is the bright response of a SuperItalia to the long night of the pandemic ».

The event, which will continue until 10 September 2021 at Fiera Milano in Rho, hosts 425 brands, 170 creatives, 39 makers for a total of 1900 projects exhibited in a continuous gallery of more than 68,000 square meters. To these are added a large exhibition at the Compasso d'Oro Museum ( learn more about the museum here) and meetings and talks with the protagonists of architecture and design, ready to testify what Boeri defines" the symbol of a new Renaissance".

Among the many novelties of this year, there is the transformation of the event into something usable by all and not only by professionals and the integration between physical and digital, which allows visitors to view the products displayed by simply framing a QR code . A special mention also for the green aspect of the event: all the fittings and materials will be disassembled and reused.