The ADI Design Museum in Milan celebrates the pioneer of Green Architecture with a tribute to his poetic and radical vision of building
From January 15 to February 15, 2026, the ADI Design Museum in Milan hosts “Green over Gray. A Tribute to Emilio Ambasz.” Curated by Fulvio Irace, with exhibition design by Jacopo Irace, the show celebrates the figure of an architect, designer, and theorist who transformed the relationship between man and nature, anticipating contemporary climate challenges by decades.
Awarded the Compasso d’Oro for Lifetime Achievement in 2020, Ambasz is considered the spiritual father of the green revolution that leads the global architectural debate today.
The Green over Gray Manifesto: More Nature, Less Concrete
The title of the exhibition, Green over Gray, is much more than a slogan: it is the beating heart of Ambasz’s philosophy. His radical vision proposes a new pact between the built environment and the natural world. For Ambasz, architecture must return 100% of the ground occupied by a building to the community in the form of gardens, green roofs, and hanging parks.
This perspective upends the traditional urban model: no longer cities made of buildings and suburbs made of greenery, but buildings that themselves become landscapes, making nature an integral part of the urban fabric.
Emilio Ambasz: The Inventor of Possible Worlds
Ambasz liked to define himself as an “inventor” rather than a simple architect. His career—which also saw him as a renowned curator at MoMA in New York (where he curated the historic 1972 exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape)—has always been guided by a profound ethic of building.
According to Ambasz, any project that does not offer new or better ways of existing is immoral. His goal was never purely pragmatic, but poetic: to give shape to human desires, fears, and wonder through invisible yet effective technological solutions.
The Exhibition Layout: An Emotional Experience
The exhibition at the ADI Design Museum is not just a chronicle of projects completed across America, Japan, and Europe, but an imaginative journey. The exhibition path offers:
- Archive Drawings and Materials: Documents showing the genesis of iconic works capable of staggering the imagination.
- Video Installations: A contribution by Francesca Molteni/Museweb brings the architect’s voice and his childhood memories of Buenos Aires into the space.
- Critical Reflection: The show highlights the precocity with which Ambasz pointed to a path “beyond technology,” where design becomes narrative and civil ritual.
Why Visit Green over Gray
This exhibition invites us to rethink architecture as a symbolic and civil gesture. In an era of climate emergency, rediscovering Emilio Ambasz means understanding that sustainability is not just a matter of materials, but a single cultural ecosystem where beauty and nature are no longer in conflict with urban gray.
Free Admission
