{"id":67442,"date":"2025-03-05T02:04:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T00:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fondazioneguidovenosta.org\/?post_type=protagonista&p=67442"},"modified":"2025-03-27T23:55:40","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T21:55:40","slug":"carla-venosta-a-passion-for-design-her-writings-and-commitment-to-womens-rights","status":"publish","type":"protagonista","link":"https:\/\/www.fondazioneguidovenosta.org\/en\/protagonista\/carla-venosta-a-passion-for-design-her-writings-and-commitment-to-womens-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Carla Venosta: A Passion for Design, Her Writings, and Commitment to Women’s Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Carla Venosta\u2019s passion, talent, and rich professional background are evidenced by numerous citations and articles in industry literature\u2014both about her and authored by her. Just consider the many exhibitions she has curated and participated in, both in Italy and abroad. One notable example is\u00a0From the Spoon to the City in the Journey of 100 Designers<\/i>, held at the Palazzo dell\u2019Arte in Milan in 1983 during the ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, now WDO \u2013 World Design Organization) Congress, where she had served as Vice President from 1979 to 1981.<\/p>\n

Her remarkable creations have also been showcased in various exhibitions, such as\u00a0Women in the Workshop<\/i>, held in 2013 as part of the annual European Days of Artistic Crafts. Interestingly, among the many facets of Venosta\u2019s multifaceted talent, it was not her industrial design work that was selected for this event, but rather her contributions to furniture design. As a result, her works were displayed in the\u00a0Silverware: Unconventional Designs<\/i>\u00a0section.<\/p>\n

Her impressive career is meticulously documented in the book curated by V. Voltolina and G.F. Farioli,\u00a0Carla Venosta. 30 Industrial Design Projects in Italy<\/i>, published in 2007. The essence of the book is clear:<\/p>\n

“Carla Venosta\u2019s Milanese studio is one of the cornerstones of Italian Design. Her name is inextricably linked to ingenious solutions for design challenges across multiple fields: design, fashion, and architecture. Twice awarded the prestigious Compasso d\u2019Oro prize, she has always sought to translate new technologies into industrial design, creating a system of objects that transcend the problem itself. Gaining recognition in the field of exhibition design, installations, and urban planning, Carla Venosta has also played a key role\u2014through her political commitment\u2014in advocating for women\u2019s presence in society.”<\/i><\/p>\n

Fortunately, her extensive archive, including drawings, models, prototypes, and more, is preserved at the CSAC \u2013 Study and Communication Archive Center in Parma.<\/p>\n

For Carla Venosta, design was about ideas, and as she once wrote,\u00a0\u201cdesigning the design\u201d<\/i>\u00a0was one of the things that excited her most. Among her projects for the FGV\u2014a foundation she established in memory of her husband, Guido Venosta, but unfortunately did not have the time to fully develop\u2014was one that aimed to involve St. John\u2019s College at the University of Cambridge, where Guido Venosta had studied. The project would have explored the concept of civic fabric: how to preserve its legacy, how to build it from scratch, and to what extent a region\u2019s or a country\u2019s civic fabric serves as a strategic driver of economic development. It would have been a truly remarkable initiative.<\/p>\n

Venosta\u2019s passion and profession as a designer also shaped her work at FGV. The establishment of the\u00a0Il Ponte<\/i>\u00a0Award, which was presented annually from 2004 to 2014, stemmed from her experience in\u00a0design for development<\/i>\u2014a concept rooted in the\u00a0Ahmedabad Declaration<\/i>\u00a0of 1982 that promotes an ethically and socially responsible approach to design. Notably, the award itself was designed by her.<\/p>\n

A woman like Carla Venosta, driven by strong passions, was naturally drawn to political engagement. A staunch democrat and a socialist aligned with the Craxian movement, she devoted herself to improving women’s conditions in society and championing\u00a0women\u2019s architecture<\/i>\u2014a discipline that includes the design of spaces for and by women, advocating for its recognition, appreciation, and academic study.<\/p>\n

Years after her passing, in her commentary on the book\u00a0Women\u2019s Spaces: Home, Work, and Society<\/i>, edited by M. Bassanelli and I. Forino (2024), Graziella Tonon\u2014former Professor of Urban Planning at the School of Civil Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano\u2014comments on one of the book\u2019s sections:<\/p>\n

“Carola D\u2019Ambros (A Room of One\u2019s Own: Women\u2019s Domestic Design from the Postwar Era to the 1970s) laments how, in architecture and design,\u00a0\u2018the cultural heritage produced by women remains largely unknown\u2019. After reviewing the state of historical and critical research on women\u2019s work in the field, she conducts a bibliographic analysis of major Italian design magazines from the postwar period onward (p. 35). Her goal: to extract significant examples of domestic environments designed for women and compare the outcomes achieved by male and female designers. The result of this \u2018duel\u2019\u2014which readers can sense from the very beginning\u2014is clear: in terms of sensitivity and alignment with women\u2019s needs, Carla Venosta and Cini Boeri outshine their male counterparts (even the famous ones).\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

This commentary fittingly concludes the portrait of a woman whose work and commitment remain not only relevant today but exemplary. Indeed, Carla Venosta deserves to be far more widely known beyond the specialized fields of architecture and design.[\/vc_column_text][vc_media_grid element_width=”12″ gap=”15″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1743112424757-a28124aa-3110-5″ include=”67868,67869,67867″][vc_column_text]Sources:<\/b>
\nAlbiate (MB), Villa San Valerio, Archives of Villa San Valerio, Carla Venosta Archive, Materials for a Possible Book for Guido \u2013 2008 (unpublished draft).<\/p>\n

Bibliography:<\/b><\/p>\n