Beauty, Function, Sustainability: The 60th Golden Compass Awards
The highly anticipated and prestigious 2014 Golden Compass Award winners were announced this week, and the result is nothing short of spectacular. This series of awards for successful Italian creativity and innovation in industrial design was created in 1954 by Gio Ponti and Alberto Rosselli. In the 150 years since then, it has become the most recognized award in its field. Over the past century, the awards have been given exclusively by the ADI (Associazione per il Disegno Industriale or Association for Industrial Design) once every three years. The ADI seeks to recognize and promote those products that are made in Italy that showcase a particularly stunning display of quality and unique design.
Over the past century, the Golden Compass has come to stand out as the most sought after award of its kind, attracting a great deal of international reverence, despite its strict adherence to the Italian heritage qualifications of the designs. There are varying levels of the ADI’s Golden Compass honor. The Youth Plate is given to exceptional designs made by a young innovators, several Honorable Mentions are awarded, Lifetime Achievement awards are presented to the most exceptionally consistent and progressive designers and figureheads of the industry, and the original highest honors of the Golden Compass comprise the rankings created by the ADI. Regardless of specific title awarded to a product, the designs that are recognized serve as a beacon of innovation and success in Italy, projecting these ideals to the international community.
Over 300 designs have been Past recipients of this honor have included everything from the seemingly simple but stunning electric fan to the more complex racing bikes to the more obscure, a coat hanger. All of the awardees deserve the high honor, as they incorporate new technologies, appealing designs, and alluring functions. They show the public that functionality doesn’t have to mean the absence of aesthetic appeal. In fact, these Golden Compass recipients bring the best qualities of function together in a cohesive fashion in order to create a uniquely beautiful object or product that serves a purpose rather than one of simply aesthetics. Beauty is truly in the eye of the innovator, who sees appeal in previously unseen territories, like a coffee maker or sofa- both of which have won the Golden Compass over the years. Industrial design is the new art frontier.
The awards this year have drawn a quite a bit of attention due to their winners’ material composition and the social phenomena associated with the innovations. We have seen a shift in focus towards the more “green” or environmentally aware/friendly products, particularly in this year. This green movement has swept the globe in recent decades and is no stranger to industrial design, but there has been a noticeable increase in the green-quality of the composition of the designs. For example, one of this years’ winners of the Golden Compass, the Travel Air Jacket (UNO61), was made entirely of recycled and recyclable materials. It works for a new way of dressing for a sustainable consumption. This design by Marco Broglia and Renzo Pigliapoco incorporates technologies from the world of emergency relief into a fashion item. This kind of designs serve as a stimulant for the participation in the green movement, only furthering the international social progression and popularity of the green idea. With sustainable energy and products becoming more and more “trendy” by the year, it is no big surprise that the winners of the Golden Compass would include environmentally friendly and proactive designs.
The winning designs will be placed on display at the exhibition in Milan in a few weeks, for all to see and admire until the time comes to choose the next generation of Golden Compass recipients. The celebrations to come at the exhibition will serve as a reminder of the uniqueness and unification of Italy. A more in-depth look into these awards can be found on the Italian Journal website.
-Marissa Bondi
