“Civilizations Without Jewels Have Never Existed” at 10 Corso Como, Milan. Curated by Alessio de’ Navasques, the exhibition runs until February 16, 2025, showcasing Branzi’s jewelry, objects, and visionary design philosophy

Words DOMENICO CASORIA

10 Corso Como commemorates the visionary and multifaceted figure of Andrea Branzi one year after his passing with an exhibition that encapsulates his design philosophy and intellectual depth. Andrea Branzi. Civilizations Without Jewels Have Never Existed pays tribute to an architect, designer, and theorist who seamlessly merged applied arts, architecture, and design, offering profound reflections on nature, the body, and art.
Curated by Alessio de’ Navasques and hosted in the gallery spaces until February 16, 2025, the exhibition unfolds as a journey through light and space, highlighting the wonder of jewelry, objects, and projects that defined Branzi’s trajectory from the 1980s to his final works in 2023. More than a retrospective, it invites visitors to grasp the continuity of a thought process that interwove modernity and nature, science and spirituality—an ongoing, unresolved yet vital tension.
At the heart of the exhibition is Branzi’s jewelry—garlands of gold and silver, crowns, and necklaces—that frame the human body, integrating it into a landscape where the boundary between man and nature dissolves. These pieces are not mere ornaments; they act as manifestations of a millennia-old poetics, evoking the sanctity of the body as a temple. His jewelry imbues the human form with an aura of leaves and natural elements, revealing the mystical essence of ornamentation in its primordial significance.
Yet Branzi’s exploration extends beyond aesthetics. His objects serve as symbols of a design philosophy that runs through the discipline like a crucible of meaning. His contemplation of jewelry as a marker of a hidden cosmic order aligns with his work on natural materials—wood, stone, silver—continually reinterpreting the environment and the objects that surround us.

View of the exhibition "Civilizations without jewels have never existed" by Andrea Branzi at Galleria di 10 Corso Como, Milan, 2025. Photograph by 10 Corso Como.

A pivotal section of the exhibition showcases a series of gold and silver jewelry crafted in Belgium in the late 1990s, first exhibited in a retrospective at the Ghent Design Museum in 1998. These pieces are displayed in dialogue with Branzi’s Animali Domestici seating series from the 1980s, as well as his later works Stones 2A and Germinal Bench, where he weaves together natural archetypes and industrial materials, provoking a meditation on nature as an infinite architectural force.
The exhibition’s title, drawn from the idea that civilizations without jewels have never existed, epitomizes Branzi’s perspective. In his work, jewelry is not simply decorative—it represents a deeper pursuit, an art form seeking equilibrium, mystery, and intrinsic beauty. Branzi urges us to look beyond the surface, to uncover the hidden meaning within every form and material, and to perceive the poetry embedded in the everyday.

ALESSIO DE’ NAVASQUES in conversation with DOMENICO CASORIA

View of the exhibition "Civilizations without jewels have never existed" by Andrea Branzi at Galleria di 10 Corso Como, Milan, 2025. Photograph by 10 Corso Como.

The exhibition is titled Civilizations Without Jewels Have Never Existed. Could you elaborate on how Andrea Branzi’s jewelry embodies this concept and the symbolic and cultural meanings he attributed to these creations?

Alessio de’ Navasques: In Branzi’s vision—shaped by his role as a pivotal theorist within the radical Archizoom group and the Milanese movements of Memphis and Alchymia—there exists an intimate and deeply personal dimension. Beginning in the late 1980s with the Animali Domestici series, he reflected on how modernity was losing its meaning and the necessity of creating objects imbued with evocative power. His work transcends functional design, engaging instead with the symbolic and philosophical. Jewelry, as he conceived it, is an object that defies time and space, carrying an evocative force that surpasses the value of its materials, reaching into the mystical and symbolic realms of primordial ornamentation.

How do the concepts of sacredness and the primordial search for cosmic order manifest in Andrea Branzi’s jewelry? To what extent do these objects embody his vision of a poetic way of dwelling in dialogue with nature?

AdN: Branzi conceived his jewelry as an entryway into a landscape, one that is simultaneously domestic and urban. These pieces trace the wearer’s aura, immersing them in a distinctly Branzian space. Historically, the first jewels connected light, gold, and the human form to the sky and the divine. Branzi’s jewelry retains this primordial power, resisting industrial replication and standing apart from the conventional dynamics of mass production and design.

As a curator, what do you find most revolutionary or unprecedented about Branzi’s design philosophy, and how is this reflected in the exhibition?

AdN: One of the most fascinating aspects is the revelation of his work in Belgium and the applied arts, which remains less explored compared to his widely known theoretical contributions. The exhibition highlights the coherence and diversity of his practice, from jewelry to applied arts and lighting. His ideas resonate across disciplines, forging a continuous dialogue between nature and modernity.

Given Branzi’s deep engagement with hybridizing natural materials and modern techniques, how does he interpret the tension between tradition and innovation in his work? What role does this duality play in his broader design vision?

AdN: This tension is central to Branzi’s third phase, which begins with Animali Domestici. Here, he hybridizes the industrial form of the chair with raw birch logs—objects that are both primitive and sacred in their natural state. This approach allows him to re-signify the object, restore dignity to domestic spaces, and challenge conventions within applied arts. His silver tea set, for instance, reimagines classical forms with the unexpected addition of wooden logs as handles, reinforcing his vision of design as a continuous interplay between tradition and transformation.

View of the exhibition "Civilizations without jewels have never existed" by Andrea Branzi at Galleria di 10 Corso Como, Milan, 2025. Photograph by 10 Corso Como.