Compasso d'Oro (Italian pronunciation: [komˈpasso ˈdɔːro]; Golden Compass) is the name of an industrial design award originated in Italy in 1954. The award was first sponsored by the La Rinascente, a Milanese department store. It has been organised and managed by the Associazione per il Disegno Industriale (ADI) since 1958. It is the first, and among the most recognized and respected awards in its field. The Compasso d'Oro aims to acknowledge and promote quality in the field of industrial design in Italy and internationally.^[1]

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) Parts of this article (those related to "missing the last three editions, please refer to Wikipedia in Italian language (it.wiki) with its sources to update this page as soon as possible") need to be updated. (June 2014) You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Italian. (September 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Italian article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 3,075 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Italian Wikipedia article at [[:it:Premio Compasso d'oro]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|it|Premio Compasso d'oro}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts Awarded for, Location ...

Compasso d'Oro
Compasso d'Oro logo
Awarded for	Industrial design award
Location	ADI Design Museum (Milan)
Country	Italy
Presented by	Associazione per il Disegno Industriale
First awarded	1954
Website	adidesignmuseum.org

Close

The Compasso d′Oro was established in 1954, and now it is the highest honour in the field of industrial design in Italy,^[2] comparable to other prestigious international awards such as the Good Design award, iF Design Award, Red Dot Award, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards, and the Good Design Award (Japan). It was the first award of its kind in Europe and soon took on an international dimension and relevance, multiplying the occasions on which the exhibitions of award-winning objects were held in Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan.

The original idea for the award is credited to Gio Ponti and Alberto Rosselli [it]. Many other leading architects and designers of the era including the Castiglioni brothers (Livio, Pier Giacomo, and Achille), Albe Steiner [it] (whose logo design was inspired by Adalbert Goeringer's golden section compass), Enzo Mari and Marco Zanuso were involved in its inception.^[1][3]

At present the management department of the Compasso d'Oro is Italy Industrial Designing Association, and it is also the members of the International Industrial Designing Committee and the European Designing Bureau.

Since its inception, approximately 350 designers have been honoured the Award,^[1] covering a wide range of products such as racing bikes, portable sewing machines, desks, sofas, vases, clothes hangers, drawers, clocks, desk lamps, telephones, electric fans and coffee machines — including for example to Ettore Sottsass for the Olivetti Valentine.^[4]

The ADI Design Museum in Milan houses the historical collection of the ADI Compasso d’Oro Foundation, as well as temporary exhibitions, public talks and initiatives. On 22 April 2004, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism – through its Superintendency for Lombardy – declared the collection of "exceptional artistic and historical interest", thus making it part of the national cultural heritage.^[5]

• Some of the winning products 1956-1960. Photo by Paolo Monti
• Super-automatic sewing machine model 1102 designed by Marco Zanuso (Fratelli Borletti)
• Valigia arcata in vitellone scamosciato della ditta Beretta.
• In the shelf: electro-mechanic clock "Cifra 5" (R.E.C. Solari, Udine)
• Sewing machine Mirella designed by Marcello Nizzoli for V. Necchi Spa.
• Franco Albini photographed by Paolo Monti at Compasso d'Oro Award, Milan, circa 1960.

• Other winning products
• Olivetti Valentine by Ettore Sottsass (1970)
• Richard Sapper's 1979 9090 espresso maker for Alessi.
• Nuovo Milano, a 1987 cutlery set designed by Ettore Sottsass with assistance of Alberto Gozzi.^[7]
• Fiat 500
• Abarth-Fiat Monza Zagato by Ugo Zagato
• Alfa Romeo Brera Concept by Giorgetto Giugiaro
• Sacco chair by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini, Franco Teodoro

The award is given as a Compass, the one invented by Adalbert Goeringer in 1893 to measure the Golden Section.

• Industrial design
• List of industrial designers
• List of Compasso d'Oro recipients by year (in Italian)