A project created to celebrate the culture of design innovation and local industrial excellence with an exhibition that started on March 24 and will run until June 4, 2023, at the Sala delle Capriate of Palazzo della Ragione, in the heart of Città Alta in Bergamo. “Le Fabbriche Pensanti” (The Thinking Factories) hosts an exhibition of 32 (+1) objects produced by enlightened industries between the provinces of Bergamo and Brescia that have won the Compasso d’Oro, the prestigious design award created in 1954 by Gio Ponti.

Thomas Arrigoni tells us:

“We at Magnetti Building, a company of the Grigolin group, are the main sponsors along with a series of partners including Azimut Investimenti and EFFE ARREDI. We were involved through a series of coincidences, from the multi-marketing company that fits into the Dimore Design framework, for this initiative that has been around for several years and that this year has decided to be part of the Bergamo Brescia Italian Capital of Culture framework by doing research on companies from Bergamo and Brescia that have won the Compasso d’Oro over the years.

Through this research, they discovered that in our territories, a whole series of artifacts have been produced, ranging from Brembo brakes to the ABB electrical panel https://new.abb.com/it , to the respirator device in Decathlon masks.

In this year that sees Bergamo, the capital of culture, we were looking for an event that could tell the story of the mark that our capital has left, and continues to leave, on Italian and international culture, in line with the values of Magnetti Building and the group.

This project fascinated us for two reasons:

On the one hand, the support for our territory and for this research project, on the other hand, because it is transversal and does not end with an exhibition, which is in fact one of the various phases of the project itself. The first phase, “Le Fabbriche Pensanti,” which closes in early June in Città Alta, the second phase involves the production of a real book edited by New Landscape publishing house with the story of the success stories of Bergamo companies that have won the Compasso d’Oro, which is effectively an architecture award.

The third phase is the creation of four talks called Future Off, on major themes: We bring the theme of sustainable construction, and we will hold this talk in October.

Le Fabbriche Pensanti therefore sees, on the one hand, an exhibition in the center of Bergamo in Città Alta celebrating a past era and, on the other hand, a continuation that looks to the future.

And this bridge between past and future is also in our slogan: “Train or be trained, depending on how you read it, to look to the future for solutions that range in every field.”