REPORTAGE: Triennale "Casa Lana" exhibition by Cristina Morozzi

The permanent installation Casa Lana is located on the second floor of Triennale Milano, in the spaces of Sala Sottsass, where other thematic exhibitions are planned for the coming months.

On 2 December, Triennale Milano inaugurated its “Casa Lana” exhibition, a permanent acquisition that was made possible thanks to Barbara Radice and a donation by the Lana family. The flat, located in Milan’s trendy Via Solari, was built in the mid-1960s by Ettore Sottsass for Giovanni Lana, a friend, typographer and printer Sottsass worked with. Lana printed the Pianeta Fresco magazine – founded by Sottsass with Fernanda Pivano and Allen Ginsberg – from its first issue in 1967 to its final one in 1968.

The flat was reconstructed in painstakingly authentic detail, and its highlight is the Sala Sottsass living area where other thematic exhibitions will be set up regarding aspects of Casa Lana. Barbara Radice stressed her desire to create a cultural programme of exhibitions and debates together with the Triennale, an organisation she has come to know well since childhood as her father, painter Mario Radice, used to exhibit there.

The first thematic exhibition, which opened on 2 December, is “Struttura e Colore” (Structure and Colour) with objects from the 1970s, sketches from the 1950s, and plans from the 1940s. The next exhibition – “Il Calcolo” (Calculation) – will open in May 2022 and will be a collaboration with the Sottsass archive and other lenders. 

The overall project also includes a donation to the Triennale of part of the works displayed in the various exhibitions, thus creating a Sottsass fund accessible to the public. Casa Lana, as an exemplary model of interiors, will become a fulcrum of visual and theoretical reflections on the culture of living spaces.

Cristina Morozzi