Zuppa Inglese

The exhibition Zuppa Inglese—or “English soup,” a popular Italian dessert—explored the ideas, approaches and inspirations of eight British designers whose disciplines range from architecture, fashion and graphics to furniture and product design. Featured designers included Dunne & Raby, Tom Dixon, Sebastian Bergne, Nick Crosbie, Nigel Coates, Wayne Hemingway, Morag Myertscough and Ron Arad. The exhibition provided insight into the much-celebrated UK design scene, but with less emphasis on objects, and more focus on the designers’ inspirations. Additionally, the show identified a number of common issues that informed the design scene of the 1990s: design and mass production; collaboration and interdisciplinarity; manufacturing investigations, and most importantly a critical, even radical undercurrent that used design to influence the evolution of culture in relation to wider social, political, and economic conditions.