The Moon is a Light bulb. 50 years of IED

The IED arrives at its 50th birthday and celebrates it with the international exhibit “The moon is a light bulb. 50 years of IED”. Fifty great years, full of success and growth. When it was born, in 1966, founded by its now president Francesco Morelli, IED wanted to be an alternative to the dusty world of academias, a place where design was protagonist declined in all its variants, applied to practical activities and, most of all, enriched in the name of an opening to present times. “The knowledge and the technique must grow together“, says president Morelli.

In these fifty years a lot happened: culture adapted, the world changed, design evolved. IED, like always, kept up with the times and decided to make a show of everything that happened in half a century of existence with the wonderful interactive installation at the opening of the exhibit: a timeline through sounds, colors and dates makes us look back the extraordinary path that this international institute walked.

The exhibit will last twenty-one days and will unfold in a totally original manner: instead of the usual exposition (to which is dedicated a relevant yet limited space) the core of everything is the interactive part where the talents and methods of work of yesterday’s and today’s IED students are put on display. You will see these designers in-the-making working on hundreds of different activities: they, students and creative, the truest heart of this place.

There’s more, the program of celebrations is quite rich. Besides the actual exhibit, there are forty-four workshops and eight lectures that will see the presence of more than five hundred students. These workshops will be the occasion to not only explore IED’s history but also the concept of design itself and all the fields, old and new, that it concerns.

A huge and beautiful initiative, studied to the last detail and supported by illustrious partners, the main one being Intesa San Paolo, to celebrate the birthday of one of the major Milanese institutions that, thanks to its many alumni (one-hundred and twenty thousands former students from one-hundred and thirty different countries) influenced the design world extending in eleven cities spread throughout Italian territory but also in Spain and Brazil. Isn’t this the best way to celebrate a triumph?

Photo credit © Stefano Casati