Design adventures in glass mark 70 years of Gallotti & Radice at Milan Design Week 2026

When Pierangelo Gallotti and Luigi Radice founded their namesake firm in the heart of Brianza in 1955, the densely industrialised region between Milan and Como was already a hub of carpentry. Supported by abundant local timber and generations of specialised craftsmen, the district had become one of Italy's foremost centres of furniture production. As such, starting a furniture brand was not, in theory, a radical idea. What was radical was the path that they chose: to create a company based on objects wrought almost exclusively in glass.

Gallotti & Radice first operated as a small workshop, producing lighting, mirrors and decorative objects entirely by hand, before expanding its industrial capabilities to materials such as metal and upholstery. Yet its spirit of artisanal experimentation never faded.

Now in its 70th year, the brand marks the milestone with ‘Tales in Glass', an exhibition that will culminate in a group show featuring new work by a global cohort of female designers, including the LA- and Uruguay-based Estudio Persona; London's Miminat Shodeinde; Milan's Valentina Cameranesi Sgroi; Belgian-Dutch designer Ivania Carpio; Tokyo's Fumie Shibata; and the Dubai- and Montreal-based Rania Hamed.

Taking place in the historic Palazzo Meli Lupi di Soragna, the exhibition ‘tells a story in three chapters', says Silvia Gallotti, the brand's second-generation CEO and creative director. The narrative lives within an immersive installation designed by Parisian architect Sophie Dries. ‘The scenography is inspired by crystal, so we're wrapping the walls with fabric and passementerie threaded with raw pieces of reclaimed glass,' says Dries. ‘It will feel quite precious, but, at the same time, the movement is very dramatic.'

Visitors will first encounter the company's earliest creations, for which Dries and Gallotti spent months recovering archive pieces from auctions and vintage dealers. Among them is the 1971 ‘Adam' table – a transparent slab set on curved legs – widely considered the first table made entirely from glass. ‘At the time, they had invented new ways of fusing glass,' explains Dries, who will display an original edition alongside a new version she has reinterpreted in a warmer bronze-tinted finish.

The 1970s marked a turning point for the brand, as it developed a method of joining panes of glass with a simple stainless steel joint, enabling larger and more structurally complex pieces, such as the ‘T35 Trio' – a three-part coffee table set designed by Pierangelo Gallotti in 1975 – now presented in an anniversary edition in bronze-tinted tempered glass and brushed silver travertine.

For the section dedicated to the present, the brand will show selections from the 2026 catalogue, including outdoor furniture by the Milan-based duo David/Nicolas. The company will also present its latest pieces at Salone del Mobile, where Gallotti & Radice will launch new work by Studiopepe, Federica Biasi, and a collaboration between Francesco Meda and David López Quincoces.

Yet it is the latest generation of designers, presented in the exhibition's final chapter, that illustrates the artistic potential of the material. ‘We asked each designer to incorporate their own culture into the work,' says Gallotti. ‘These pieces truly tell a story – both of the designer's background and of the craftsmanship that Gallotti & Radice has cultivated over the past 70 years.'

The new commissions explore glass through a range of artisanal finishes that Gallotti & Radice has developed over the decades. Estudio Persona will present a low table with a fused amethyst glass top set on a base in hand-patinated antique bronze, with an alternative version clad in shimmering aluminium leaf. Shibata worked with tempered extra-light glass, delicately shading its surface by hand into soft gradients of chestnut, pink or yellow. Shodeinde composed a console from thick glass panels that fade gradually from deep black to transparency. Cameranesi Sgroi, meanwhile, experimented with fused glass to create a nesting trio of tables with crackled surfaces and shimmering aluminium-leaf finishes.

‘It's been extraordinary to visit the company's workshops and see how much of the process is still done by hand,' says Dries, whose installation will also feature other archive treasures, including original drawings from the 1960s and 1970s. ‘To find this depth of artisanal knowledge still alive within a family-run company is incredibly rare. It's precisely the reason their work with glass has endured for so long.'

Gallotti&Radice – Tales in Glass, Palazzo Meli Lupi di Soragna, Via Daniele Manin 13, Milan, gallottiradice.it

20-25 April 2026, 10am – 9pm;
21 and 26 April 2026, 10am – 5pm

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