Historic achievement for all of us: the award was recognized because of business research and nearly one hundred years of technological expertise applied to wood.

The Compasso d’Oro is the highest award for Italian design. Biennial, with a national and international jury of more than 200 people, the 2020 edition honored excellence that went into production in 2018 and 2019; nearly 1,800 projects were nominated. On September 9, 18 Compassi d’Oro and 38 Honorable Mentions were awarded at the ADI headquarters in Milan.

These include TABU’s prodigious 555.18 collection, which is the world’s largest collection of natural dyed and multilaminar veneers for interior design and architecture.

TABU was the only “supply chain” company, presenting a collection of semi-finished wood products, to win an award in the Compasso d’Oro ceremony.

Alongside TABU, companies such as Foscarini, Boffi| DePadova, Antonio Lupi Design, MV Agusta Motor, Fantoni, Piaggio, and Bticino were honored. Among the Compassi d’Oro: Flos, Zanotta, Ferrari, Momodesign, Brembo, Enel, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Flou.

From now on, the 555.18 Collection will become part of the permanent Compasso d’Oro Collection at the headquarters of the Industrial Design Association at 7 Via Ceresio in Milan.

Established in 1954, the ADI Compasso d’Oro Award is the oldest but above all the most authoritative world design award. The brainchild of Gio Ponti, it was organized for years by the La Rinascente department store in order to highlight the value and quality of Italian design products then in their infancy. It was later donated to ADI, which has been in charge of its organization since 1958, overseeing its impartiality and integrity. The nearly three hundred projects awarded in more than fifty years of the award’s life, together with the nearly two thousand selected with an Honorable Mention, are collected and preserved in the Historical Collection of the ADI Compasso d’Oro Award, the management of which has been entrusted to the ADI Foundation, established for the purpose by ADI in 2001.

The Compasso d’Oro prize is awarded on the basis of a pre-selection carried out by ADI’s Permanent Design Observatory, which is made up of a committee of experts, designers, critics, historians, specialized journalists, ADI members or outsiders, all of whom are continuously engaged in collecting, year after year, information and evaluating and selecting the best products, which are then published in the ADI Design Index annuals.

In an initiative that is unprecedented in the field of international design, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage-Regional Superintendence for Lombardy, by Decree of April 22, 2004, declared the Historical Collection of the ADI Compasso d’Oro Award to be of “exceptional artistic and historical interest,” consequently including it in the national heritage.

For more information:

Francesca Losi

Communication Manager TABU spa

Cell. 338 28 68 600

fl@tabu.it