Istituto Italiano di Cultura

摘要

Proposed and economically backed by Carlo Maurilio Lerici, an engineer and entrepreneur in the steel sector, the idea of building an Italian Institute of Culture in Stockholm was mooted in 1941. Its purpose would be to establish a representation of Italian culture in Sweden, alongside the École Francais and the British Council. With businesslike determination, the products of Italian craftsmanship and of its budding design industry were displayed at the Nordiska Kompaniet department store in Stockholm, a company for which Gio Ponti designed some furniture. Begun in 1953, the institute's building itself, in Lerici's intentions, was to be a permanent showcase of Italian art and genius. In a chapter of his In Praise of Architecture, titled "Cards on the Table", Ponti juxtaposed a sequence of diagrams to illustrate projects developed from 1951 to 1957.