Tracing the practice of exhibition design across design and architecture exhibitions in Italy, 1960-1966

This research posits that exhibition design in Italy should be viewed as a developing practice of architects, extending beyond its direct association with object industrial production. Utilising extensive primary materials sourced from archives, contemporary periodicals, and interviews with exhibition builders who supported the creation of exhibitions, the four chapters of this thesis investigate the various ways in which exhibition design evolved as a significant practice in Italy during a pivotal period of heightened exhibition proliferation. Re-thinking the existing history of Italian design with less focus on the history of object production and more on collaborative exchanges. At the same time, it can also provide a paradigm for the analysis of exhibition design in wider contexts, offering a template for the study of exhibitions in design history.