After starting in Milan on 4 April, the tour moved on to Madrid at the end of May and is now about to bring its multicoloured energy to the Catalan capital. This evening, at 5 pm, the exhibition will open its doors to the public in the central Marina de Lujo (Paseo de Joan Borbò) and will remain open until Thursday 13 July. The press conference will be held at 12 pm on the opening day with the participation of Javier Lopez de Arce, director of Lancia Spain, and Alessandro Manetti, director of the Barcelona branch of the European Design Institute.

The first two stages in this tour, designed to celebrate the Lancia centennial and the hundred years of Italian design that it represents, have already pulled in over 16,000 visitors. In Barcelona, as in Milan and Madrid, the opening week will be an uninterrupted succession of events, debates and social occasions ranging from conferences for industry specialists to cocktail nights in a typical movida atmosphere. This exhibition of great theatrical impact, devised by Davide Rampello, president of the Milan Triennale and staged by Luca Molinari, director of the NABA school of design in Milan, showcases the world of Lancia values by presenting cars that have defined their era alongside the forms and functions of the objects that have written the history of Italian design.

The Lancia cars on display retrace 100 years of Italian history. The exhibition starts from the Lambda Torpedo (1925), continues with other historical examples, such as the Aurelia B24 Spider (1955), the Flaminia Coupé (1965) and the Fulvia Coupé (1967), to reach the recent past, with the legendary Delta HF 4WD (1989) and today with the Lancia Ypsilon MOMO Design. Each of these cars has made an indelible mark on the concept of Italian style, as have many of the design objects also on display. There is a continuous cross-referencing between past and present and between forms and impressions, which generate evocative combinations, such as the Lambda Torpedo and the 1959 Calendario Bilancia by Enzo Mari, the Aurelia B24 Spider and ‘Sgarsul’ by Gae Aulenti from 1961, the Flaminia Coupé and the Cupola by Aldo Rossi from 1988 and the Delta HF 4WD with the Cubo by Bruno Munari from 1957, to cite just a few examples.
 

Visitors can thus use their own imagination to relive, through the world of Lancia and Italian design, the memories of an era, the ever topical fascination of the past and the beauty of the present.

A dream world, with connotations of a glorious past and with equally powerful influences from the present and the future – perfectly embodied in the new two-tone Ypsilons – is evoked through a video installation created by cinema historian Gian Piero Brunetta. The installation, projected against a Fulvia Coupé in an evocative setting, presents Lancia cars in the role of co-stars in a selection of scenes that have contributed to the success of Italian cinema throughout the world, forever defining an era with attributes such as beauty, lightheartedness, freedom and poetry. In short, creating the Italian lifestyle at the centre of the attention of the paparazzi during the unforgettable era of the Dolce Vita.

Lancia means style and elegance. One could say that the marque embodies the very essence of Italian values. This is why the brand has decided to bring together the areas of excellence that have made Italian style famous throughout the world: cars, design and cinema. These different languages, which have contributed to make the world fall in love with Italian style, have been called in by Lancia to celebrate a hundred years of history and the Italian lifestyle and to express the DNA of the marque through a continuous interplay of stimulus, evocation and reference.

The Lancia Tour Italian Design will continue over the coming months with stages in Brussels and Athens to conclude in Turin on 26 November, the anniversary of the founding of Lancia.