MDW 2026: Torre Velasca hosts exhibition on polish modernism

Torre Velasca, in Milan, emerges as one of the most talked-about highlights of Milan Design Week 2026 as it hosts the exhibition Polish Modernism – A Struggle for Beauty, presented by the Visteria Foundation and curated by Federica Sala and Anna Maga. Installed on the building’s 16th floor, the show transforms the space into an expanded reading of Polish modernism, proposing a narrative that articulates historical works and contemporary productions, highlighting the endurance of modernist thought in Polish design culture.

By avoiding a chronological approach, the curatorial vision proposes a fragmented field of experimentation that spans architecture, graphic design, applied arts, and industrial production.

Torre Velasca. (hellron/iStock/Divulgação)

The starting point is the understanding that modernism in Poland is not limited to a style but constitutes a cultural and political condition. The title of the exhibition — inspired by a 1948 text by writer Irena Krzywicka — evokes the idea of a “struggle for beauty” as a gesture of resistance, in which aesthetics emerges not only as formal refinement but as an affirmation of identity amid adverse historical contexts.

This understanding is reflected in the selection of works itself, which brings together pieces from the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw — including furniture by Jan Kurzątkowski, Bohdan Lachert, and Teresa Kruszewska — alongside contemporary creations by designers such as Tomek Rygalik, Maria Jeglińska-Adamczewska, and Maja Ganszyniec, many of them developed especially for the exhibition.

(Visteria Foundation/Divulgação)

One of the central axes of the itinerary is the project IWP (IID)_Design Repository_2.0, which reinterprets icons of Polish design — such as the meblościanka (modular wall unit) and the amerykanka convertible armchair — from a contemporary perspective. This focus finds a direct echo in Torre Velasca itself, a landmark of postwar Italian modernity, whose presence acts not merely as a support but as an active agent in the narrative.

Along the route, works by artists such as Władysław Strzemiński, Edward Krasiński, and Katarzyna Kobro expand the reading of modernism beyond design, incorporating formal and conceptual dimensions that reinforce its complexity.

(Visteria Foundation/Divulgação)

More than a retrospective gaze, A Struggle for Beauty positions itself as an investigation into the present — and, above all, into the future. By recovering a modernism that reconciled art, industry, and everyday life, the exhibition suggests that its greatest contribution may lie precisely in its capacity to think of design as a tool to improve quality of life, keeping open the tension between function, expression, and sensitivity.

Complementing the main installation, the project unfolds into a program of talks and conversations with curators, designers, and partner institutions, extending the exhibition beyond the physical space. After Milan Design Week, the show continues to Warsaw, where it will be presented at the headquarters of the Visteria Foundation.