The Compasso d'Oro (; ) is an industrial design award which originated in Italy in 1954. Initially sponsored by Milanese department store La Rinascente, the award has been organised and managed by the Associazione per il Disegno Industriale (ADI) since 1964. The Compasso d'Oro is the first and among the most recognized and respected design awards. It aims to acknowledge and promote quality in industrial design in Italy and internationally, and has been called both the "Nobel" and the "Oscar" of design.
History
The Compasso d′Oro was established in 1954, and it is the highest honour in the field of industrial design in Italy, comparable to other prestigious international awards such as the Good Design award, iF Design Award, Red Dot Award, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards, and the Good Design Award (Japan). It was the first award of its kind in Europe and became internationally significant.
The original idea for the award is credited to designer Gio Ponti and . Many other leading architects and designers of the era, including the Castiglioni brothers (Livio, Pier Giacomo, and Achille), , Enzo Mari and Marco Zanuso, were involved in aspects of its inception and early development. The Compasso d'Oro logo (designed by Steiner) and award trophy invoke the drafting compass invented by Adalbert Göringer in 1893 to measure the Golden Section.
The Italy Industrial Designing Association manages the Compasso d'Oro, and it is also a member of the International Industrial Designing Committee and the European Designing Bureau.
Since its inception, approximately 350 designers have been honoured with the award, for designs covering a wide range – from automobiles and bicycles to furniture and household objects, portable sewing machines, typewriters, calculators, clocks, lighting as well as concepts and systems, technical equipment, and yachts.
For the first time, the 2020 Compasso d'Oro included a "Products Career Award" which was given to three historical designs that have proven to be highly successful over time but were not awarded at the time of their inception: a 1962 floor lamp, Arco, by Pier Giacomo and Achille Castiglioni; a 1978 bed design, Nahalie, by Vico Magistretti; and the now famous 1968 Sacco bean-bag chair designed by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini, and Franco Teodoro.
The ADI Design Museum in Milan houses the historical collection of the ADI Compasso d'Oro Foundation, as well as temporary exhibitions. On 22 April 2004, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism – through its Superintendency for Lombardy – declared the collection of "exceptional artistic and historical interest", thus making it part of the national cultural heritage. In 2020, the Milan square where the ADI Design Museum is situated was renamed "Piazza Compasso d'Oro" to honour the cultural and historical significance of the award.
The inaugural ADI "Compasso d'Oro International Award" will be held at the Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan. The winning entries will be exhibited in the Italian pavilion.
In 2025, Treccani published a comprehensive history of the Compasso d'Oro. The volume is over 1,000 pages and includes 2,275 images that document the ADI museum's collection dating from its 1954 inception through to 2022. It is published in both Italian and English versions.
List of Compasso d'Oro Awards
Year Jury President Entries Winners 1st 1954 Aldo Bassetti, Cesare Brustio, Gio Ponti, , Marco Zanuso 5700 15 2nd 1955 Aldo Bassetti, Cesare Brustio, E. N. Rogers, Alberto Rosselli, Marco Zanuso 1300 12 3rd 1956 Aldo Bassetti, Cesare Brustio, Franco Albini, Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Alberto Rosselli Alberto Rosselli (Birth of the ADI) 1450 9 4th 1957 Aldo Bassetti, Cesare Brustio, Franco Albini, Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Ignazio Gardella Giulio Castelli 1200 5 5th 1959 Bruno Alfieri, Vico Magistretti, Giulio Minoletti, Augusto Morello, Giovanni Romano Livio Castiglioni 1200 6 6th 1960 Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Vico Magistretti, Augusto Magnaghi, Augusto Morello, Marco Zanuso Franco Albini 800 10 7th 1962 Giulio Castelli, Franco Momigliano, Augusto Morello, Bruno Munari, Battista Pininfarina Roberto Olivetti 9 8th 1964 Massimo Vignelli, Dante Giacosa, Vittorio Gregotti, Augusto Morello, Bruno Munari, Gino Valle Aldo Basetti 6 9th 1967 Aldo Basetti, Felice Dessi, Gillo Dorfles, Tomás Maldonado, Edoardo Vittoria Marco Zanuso 13 10th 1970 Francesco Mazzucca, Franco Albini, Jean Baudrillard, Achille Castiglioni, Federico Correa, Vittorio Gregotti, Roberto Guiducci, Albe Steiner Anna Castelli Ferrieri 10 11th 1979 Andrea Branzi, Clino Trini Castelli, Massimo Morozzi, Angelo Cortesi, Gillo Dorfles, Augusto Morello, Arthur Pulos, Yuri Soloviev, Nanni Strada Enzo Mari 1167 39 12th 1981 François Barrè, Cesare De Seta, Martin Kelm, Ugo La Pietra, Pierluigi Spadolini Rodolfo Bonetto 16 13th 1984 Cino Boeri, Douglas Kelley, Antti Nurmesniemi, Giotto Stoppino, Bruno Zevi Giotto Stoppino 11 14th 1987 Angelo Cortesi, Rodolfo Bonetto, Marino Marini, Cara Mc Carty, Philippe Starck Angelo Cortesi 16PREMIO COMPASSO D'ORO 1987 MOTIVAZIONI DELLA GIURIA 15th 1989 Pierliugi Molinari, Fredrik Wildhagen, Hans Wichmann, Cesare Stevan, Tomás Maldonado Pierluigi Molinari 12 16th 1991 Silvio Ceccato, Marcello Inghilesi, Victor Margolin, Pierluigi Molinari, Antti Nurmesniemi, Vito Noto Angelo Cortesi 14 17th 1994 Dante Giacosa, Vittoriano Viganò, Giovanni Anceschi, Paola Antonelli, Uta Brandes, Jacob Gantenbein, Marja Heemskerk, Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, Marco Migliari, Gianemiglio Monti, Mario Trimarchi, Vito Noto Augusto Morello 13 18th 1998 Achille Castiglioni, Giuseppe De Rita, Marianne Frandsen, Fritz Frenkler, Sadik Karamustafa, Tomás Maldonado, Marco Zanuso Augusto Morello 15 19th 2001 Marie-Laure Jousset, Filippo Alison, François Burkhardt, Omar Calabrese, Francisco Jarauta, Maurizio Morgantini, Erik Spiekermann Giancarlo Iliprandi 17 20th 2004 Tomas Maldonado, Fulya Erdemci, Robert Fitzpatrick, Yutaka Mino, Pietro Petraroia, Richard Sapper, Angela Schönberger, Tomàš Vlček Carlo Forcolini 15 21st 2008 Mario Bellini, Moh-Jin Chew, Lieven Daenens, Carla Di Francesco, Carlo Forcolini, Norbert Linke, Emanuele Pirella, Richard R. Whitaker, Miguel Milá 12 22nd 2011 Arturo Dell'Acqua Bellavitis, Chantal Clavier Hamaide, Umberto Croppi, Guto Indio Da Costa, , Cecilie Manz, Clive Roux, Shiling Zheng 22 23rd 2014 Anders Byriel, Vivian Cheng, Giorgio De Ferrari, Stefan Diez, Defne Koz, Mario Gagnon, Paolo Lomazzi, Laura Traldi 23 24th 2016 Gabriella Bottini, Toshiyuki Kita, Mugendi K. M'Rithaa, Marc Sadler, Cinzia Anguissola d'Altoè Scacchetti, Yossef Schvetz, Walter Maria de Silva 25th 2018 Carlo Galimberti, Nevio Di Giusto, Yongqi Lu, Francesco Trabucco, Motoki Yoshio Francesco Trabucco 26th 2020 Luca Bressan, Virginio Briatore, Jin Kuramoto, Denis Santachiara, Päivi Tahkokallio Denis Santachiara 18 27th 2022 , , Cloe Piccoli, Annachiara Sacchi, Mirko Zardini Annachiara Sacchi 292 20 28th 2024 Maria Cristina Didero, Luciano Galimberti, , Renata Cristina Mazzantini, Toshiyuki Kita Luciano Galimberti 20 29th 2026 Giovanna Carnevali, Lorenza Baroncelli, Giovanni Brugnoli, Luciano Galimberti, Jasper Morrison Luciano Galimberti 20
Gallery
See also List of Compasso d'Oro recipients by year (in Italian) List of awards considered the highest in a field List of design awards List of industrial designers
References
Further reading
External links
Official site of the Associazione per il Disegno Industriale List of all Compasso d'Oro winners since 1954 by year/edition ADI Permanent Collection (Searchable database of past winners) Compasso d’Oro Career Award (Timeline index of past winners) ADI Design Museum Compasso d'Oro, brief documentary film by RAI Culture television