Tales in Glass: Gallotti&Radice Marks 70 Years of Glass Craft in Sophie

Tales in Glass: Gallotti&Radice’s seventy years of glass-making

Presented for Milan Design Week, Tales in Glass is a show that treats the company archive as living material. Architect-designer Sophie Dries conceived an installation where historical pieces converse with contemporary designs in a non-chronological, layered narrative.

The exhibition is built as a multimedia, sensory route: draped fabrics, controlled lighting and glass reflections shape distinct atmospheres that emphasize craftsmanship alongside experimentation.

• Location: installation developed for Palazzo Meli Lupi di Soragna for Milan Design Week.
• Concept: the archive as active material rather than nostalgic memory.
• Contributing designers: international women designers whose contemporary work enters dialogue with vintage pieces.
• Key theme: glass as an ambiguous, transformative material highlighted through layers of light, shadow and scenography.

Dries describes the approach as creating an inhabited space rather than a museum: objects are part of a staged environment that reveals and conceals, nodding to Christo’s tactic of hiding to disclose. Visitors are encouraged to consider glass both as a finished object and as the outcome of processes — from sand to molten material — carrying artisan memories.

Practical takeaways for visitors: follow the sequence of rooms to perceive the intended dialogues, pay attention to material details and lighting effects, and explore how contemporary pieces reinterpret traditional techniques. The installation aims to engage and move the audience through a living vision of design.