Awards, Recognitions and Exhibitions

Olivari partner of the Venice Pavilion at the Art Biennale. On the occasion of the 2026 Art Biennale, Olivari was invited to take part in Emersasommersa, the installation created by Alberto Scodro for the Venice Pavilion, within the wider project Note Persistenti, curated by Giovanna Zabotti with the participation of Denis Isaia and Cesare Biasini Selvaggi. In the dialogue with the artist, the door handle goes beyond its functional dimension to become a symbol of passage, relationship and discovery: the gesture of opening becomes a metaphor for access to new worlds, cultures and visions. The installation thus builds a dialogue between art and design, in which the act of opening translates into an experience of connection, transformation and knowledge.

From 24 May to 4 September 2022, the GAM – Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan hosted Caro Joe Colombo, ci hai insegnato il futuro, an exhibition dedicated to the history and ideas of the Milanese architect and designer.

Curated by Ignazia Favata and organised by Suazes with the Galleria d'Arte Moderna and the Joe Colombo Archive, the exhibition retraced the designer's work from the artistic experiments of the 1950s to his subsequent engagement with the world of industrial production.

The exhibition documented Joe Colombo's research into new materials, technologies and ways of living, presenting projects in which design, ergonomics and the transformability of space converge in a unified vision. From the Nuclear City to modular living systems, up to the experimental habitats Visiona 1 and Total Furnishing Unit, the works on display traced the evolution of his design thinking.

Olivari took part in the exhibition with the Beta handle, designed by Joe Colombo for the company on the basis of the historic 1971 model with bumper. The design integrated a doorstop function into the handle, bringing together form, use and technical research.

The exhibition was accompanied by the volume Joe Colombo. Designer. Catalogo ragionato 1962–2020, edited by Ignazia Favata and published by Silvana Editoriale.

In December 2021 Olivari published Vietato l'ingresso – No Entry, a notebook dedicated to the renovation project of the 17 dressing rooms of the Teatro Arcimboldi in Milan.

The project, coordinated by Giulia Pellegrino with the artistic direction of Gianmario Longoni and Marzia Ginocchio, involved 17 architecture and interior design studios based in Milan and its metropolitan area. Launched during the suspension of cultural activities, it transformed the spaces reserved for artists in view of the theatre's twentieth anniversary, celebrated in 2022.

Olivari took part in the initiative by bringing into the TAM a selection of handles born from its collaborations with architects and designers. Integrated into the different dressing-room projects, the models contributed to shaping the interiors and to the dialogue between architecture, interior design and design culture.

The notebook collects and documents the completed interventions, conveying the collective character of a project developed around one of Milan's cultural landmarks.

From 27 November 2019 to 27 September 2020, the MAXXI in Rome hosted Gio Ponti. Amare l'architettura, a retrospective dedicated to the work of the Milanese architect and designer forty years after his death.

Curated by Maristella Casciato and Fulvio Irace, with Margherita Guccione, Salvatore Licitra and Francesca Zanella, the exhibition retraced the many fields of Gio Ponti's research, taking architecture as the starting point to narrate his multidisciplinary approach.

Archive materials, models, photographs, books, magazines and objects documented a design vision capable of crossing different scales: from everyday objects to domestic spaces, up to works set in the urban context, such as the Pirelli Tower in Milan and the Gran Madre di Dio Co-Cathedral in Taranto.

Within the exhibition itinerary, Olivari presented a selection of handles created with Gio Ponti: E42, used in 1936 for the Palazzo Montecatini in Milan and in 1937 for the Office Building of Rome's EUR district, and the Lama, Cono and Anello models, conceived in 1956 for the construction of the Pirelli Tower.

From 19 October 2018 to 5 May 2019, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD) in Paris hosted an international retrospective dedicated to Gio Ponti. Olivari took part in the exhibition with the Cono, Lama and Anello handles, designed by the architect for the company in the 1950s.

Curated by Olivier Gabet, Dominique Forest, Sophie Bouilhet-Dumas and Salvatore Licitra, in collaboration with Gio Ponti Archives, the exhibition retraced six decades of work by the Milanese architect and designer (1891–1979). More than 500 works and objects from international collections documented the different fields of his research, from architecture to design, from applied arts to publishing.

The itinerary opened with a scale reproduction of the façade of the Gran Madre di Dio Co-Cathedral in Taranto and continued through the ceramics created for Richard Ginori, the silver objects for Christofle, the glassware for Venini, the covers of Domus, the lamps for FontanaArte, the furniture for Cassina and the collaborations with Fornasetti. The exhibition was completed by the storyboard dedicated to the film adaptation project of Luigi Pirandello's Enrico IV.

From 23 June 2017 to 14 January 2018, the MAXXI – National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome hosted L'Italia di Zaha Hadid, an exhibition dedicated to the architecture and design works created in Italy by the architect.

The exhibition also highlighted the close relationship between architecture and design that characterises some of her projects. One example is Chevron, the handle designed by Zaha Hadid in collaboration with Olivari for her first residential building in New York, located along the High Line.

Olivari's participation in the exhibition documented the handle's development process through the display of the final model, study materials, the models produced during the design and verification phases, prototypes and samples from the different stages of the production cycle.

From 19 November 2014 to 4 January 2015, the MAXXI – National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome hosted 100% Original Design, an exhibition dedicated to a selection of objects representing the history of design from 1945 to 2014.

Promoted and curated by Elle Decor Italia as part of Be Original, the exhibition continued the journey begun in Milan during the 2014 Salone del Mobile, opening a debate on the protection of creativity and originality and on the fight against counterfeiting in industrial design.

The exhibition documented the evolution of design since the post-war period through products, companies and designers that contributed to spreading design culture in Italy and abroad.

Olivari took part in the exhibition with two handles: Lama, designed by Gio Ponti, and Total, designed by Rodolfo Dordoni. Selected by the organisers as expressions of two different periods in the history of design, the two models contributed to the narrative dedicated to the originality of design and the protection of authorial design.

In 2011, on the occasion of the company's hundredth anniversary, Olivari promoted at the Milan Triennale the exhibition Macchina Semplice, dedicated to the company's history and to the evolution of the relationship between design and industrial production.

The exhibition originated from the volume of the same name edited by Stefano Casciani, already the author of L'architettura presa per mano. The publication retraced the work of three generations of entrepreneurs, analysing the relationships between design, production and market in the context of the transformations linked to globalisation and sustainability.

Macchina Semplice translated the contents of the book into an exhibition itinerary in which historical and technical documentation was flanked by expressive elements. The exhibition also narrated the collaborations developed by Olivari with architects and designers during its first century of activity, highlighting the role of design culture in the evolution of the company's production.

From 26 August to 19 September 2010, on the occasion of the 12th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, Olivari presented at the Spazio Paradiso in the Giardini the exhibition Macchina Semplice. Dall'architettura al design: 100 anni di maniglie Olivari.

Promoted by Olivari in the run-up to the company's centenary, the exhibition retraced the evolution of the door handle through a century of relationships between architecture, design and industrial production. The itinerary interpreted the handle as a point of contact between the person and the built space, highlighting its functional, ergonomic and formal aspects.

The exhibition was accompanied by the volume Macchina Semplice, written by Stefano Casciani and published by Skira. The book expanded the research begun in 1992 with L'architettura presa per mano. La maniglia moderna e la produzione Olivari, reconstructing the company's industrial history from its artisan origins to the transformations of contemporary design.

Structured in five chronological sections, the publication analysed the transition from craftsmanship to industry, the birth of design, the years of the economic boom, the confrontation between modern and postmodern, and the more recent themes of globalisation and sustainability. The volume also included a conversation between Stefano Casciani, Antonio Olivari and Alberto Alessi, accompanied by a chronology, bibliography, drawings and photographs.

On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the C. M. Lerici Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm, inaugurated on 24 November 1958, an exhibition retraced the history of the building designed by Gio Ponti and the architect's relationship with Sweden.

The construction of the Institute, financed by the engineer and patron Carlo Maurilio Lerici, was conceived as an expression of Italian culture. The architecture, the interiors and the furnishings, entirely designed by Ponti and still preserved in their original configuration, formed an integral part of the exhibition itinerary.

Photographs, overall and detail drawings and video projections documented the project, accompanied by texts taken from Gio Ponti's letters and from the volume Amate l'architettura. The exhibition also presented the research project Materiali e tecniche per il restauro dell'architettura contemporanea, which included the Institute's building.

Olivari took part in the exhibition with a selection of handles designed by Gio Ponti for the company, included in the itinerary dedicated to his work in the fields of architecture and design.