Exhibition Design

Course

The IDEA Exhibition Design – The Architecture of Exhibition, first-level Specializing Master, aims to turn out highly qualified professionals in exhibition design.  Exhibition design is the planning that involves places, spaces, and architecture to set up conceptual apparatus, physical facilities, exhibits, and installations whose purpose is communication in the broadest sense.  Shows, booths, stores, trade fairs, museums, shopping centers, trading areas, meeting places, sales outlets, performance-art spaces, and public squares and streets all call on exhibition design in a crescendo of meaningful experience and with an ongoing refinement of skills.  Such skills and experience revolve around the specific relationship between architecture as ‘interior design’ and ‘exposition architecture,’ i.e. the set of dedicated exhibition techniques that take shape and become operative in these interior spaces.

The Italian Association of Exhibition Designers, IDEA, founded in 2007 by highly qualified professionals in the field, has as its mission to certify the quality of exhibition design and to highlight the growing role of the exposition discipline in the contexts of culture, marketing, and communication.  IDEA found the ideal partner for its Specializing Master in the Politecnico di Milano, whose tradition of excellence helped launch the program with enthusiasm and a passion for the culture of exhibit design, in keeping with the association’s mission.

Didactics

Frequency

This Specializing Master includes courses with occupationally oriented content that is highly professional.  Teaching faculty include selected professionals at the top of their fields, many of whom are members of IDEA, the Italian Association of Exhibition Designers.

Training objectives

The objective of this Specializing Master is to train a new kind of professional designer whose specialist skills lie in the various application domains of exhibition design (shows, trade fairs, museums, sales outlets, events and stage setting).  These professionals need cultivated dynamism that will enable them to respond with expertise to the varied scales of exhibition design and to the multifaceted briefs they are commissioned with.  Above all, they have to have a high awareness of their professional identity.

This program includes an approximately 350-hour guided internship segment that aims to place the student as a trainee in an exhibition-design context.  Internships are available at major institutions that have a consolidated working relationship with this Specializing Master, such as:

MAGA di Gallarate, MART di Rovereto, Triennale di Milano, Sloowfood, Studio Angelo Jelmini, Studio Baldessari&Baldessari, Studio Carmadesign, Studio Cerri & Associati, Studio Crea International, Studio Dedalo, Karim Azzabi Architects, Studio Migliore+Servetto, Studio Origoni Steiner, Designnetwork, Studio Storage, Way spa, Benfenati spa, RetailDesign. 

Didactic Plan

This Specializing Master includes courses with occupationally oriented content that is highly professional.  Teaching faculty include selected professionals at the top of their fields, many of whom are members of IDEA, the Italian Association of Exhibition Designers.

Didactic Modules

Lasting 12 months, the course program comprises of 1500 hours overall, half of which consists of classroom instruction and half of independent study, and is divided into three modules.

The first module of 203 hours (8 credits) is divided into four weeks (November-December 2018) and is a theoretical-and design approach, to give all the participants a thorough basic knowledge in various domains of exhibition design: features of the history and principles of exhibit development, museology, the languages of modern art, graphics, materials and technology, the classification of large expositions, and the classification of public spaces.

The second module consists of exercises with lessons of complementary subjects, divided into three separate workshops:

Workshop exhibitions, museums and cultural events (337 hours, 14 credits)
Workshop trade fair and exhibition stands (278 hours, 11 credits)
Workshop retail space (244 hours, 10 credits)

The third module is designed to be a phase of final specialization, consisting of an internship (14 credits) at a company, a studio or other organization that will culminate in a thesis (4 credits) in one of the three overall areas: trade fairs, exposition, and retailing.

Title Released

Students who successfully complete the program and pass the final exam will be awarded a first-level Specializing Master in Exhibition Design, IDEA.

Employment Opportunities

The expected job descriptions include:

High qualified freelancer, exhibition designer in companies, retail chains and shops, exhibition designer incompanies in the fair field, cultural exhibitions and events, communication agencies, exhibition designer with responsabilities interms of the cultural sector in culturalinstitutions, museums, foundations, public andprivate corporations, public administrations; experts in production and installation of exhibit systems.

Admission

Requirements

This program is aimed at those who hold a degree in architecture, industrial design, engineering, art history, cultural heritage, applied art or communication (humanities).

Foreign students may present equivalent degrees earned abroad.

Deadlines

To take part to the selection process, the application form must be completed online within the following deadlines:

for Italian / foreign citizens with a qualification obtained in Italy within October 22nd, 2021
for Extra U.E. citizens within September 22nd, 2021

Price

The Specializing Master costs € 11.500 (€ 11.000 Master fee + € 500 Politecnico di Milano enrollment fee).

Exempt from VAT under Article 10 of DPR 633/72.

Faculty