The Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles is pleased to announce
the start of the sixth annual worldwide Italian Language Week, Monday, October 23,
highlighted by the founding of the local chapter of the prestigious Accademia Italiana della
Cucina (“Italian Academy of Cooking”). The week concludes Monday, October 30, with an
extraordinary presentation by Lella and Massimo Vignelli, two unrivaled leaders in
contemporary Italian design at LACMA.
The inaugural day of Italian Language Week features the founding ceremony of the local chapter of
the prestigious Accademia, initiated by Italian Cultural Institute Director Francesca Valente, along
with its founding members. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Italian Consul General Diego Brasioli
will serve as honorary chairmen at this unique event. For the start of the exhibition “Fifty Years of
Italian Cooking,” the Accademia’s president, Giuseppe Dell’Osso, will also attend.
To mark this occasion the Istituto Italiano di Cultura will present to Giuseppe Dell’Osso a Lifetime
Achievement Award, a sculpture entitled Tondo by tuscan sculptor Mauro Staccioli, in recognition
of his invaluable contribution to the promotion of the Italian culture all over the world.
To highlight the evening, Italy’s Emilia Romagna region will offer an assortment of its typical
products and eno-gastronomical specialties.
Throughout the week there will be a series of master classes by renowned Italian chiefs, including
Gino Angelini and Celestino Drago, with alternating wine and olive oil tasting from various
regions of Italy, and Tuscany in particular.
In all the week features five, eventful gastronomic days, with food historians Luigi Ballerini, Diane
Ghirardo and Lucia Re, as well as cookbook writers who have drawn upon the finest traditions of
Italian cooking. Music and art will not be lacking, with the performance of Naples That’s Amore, at
the California Center of Arts in San Diego, and the exhibition, “Enigma Variations: De Chirico and
Guston,” at the Santa Monica Museum of Art.
To conclude this richly varied week, the Italian Cultural Institute will present, in collaboration with
the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, a talk by Lella and Massimo Vignelli, during which will
be conferred a lifetime achievement award acknowledging their contribution to international graphic
design. Lella and Massimo Vignelli have, in fact, worked with companies such as American
Airlines, Knoll International, the New York Transit Authority, Rizzoli and Fodor’s. They did the
graphics for the New York and Washington, D.C. subways, U.S. National Parks, the Piccolo Teatro
di Milano and TG2. They have been the recipients of numerous awards in Italy and abroad, among
which the Compasso d’Oro in 1964 and 1998, the American Institute of Architect’s industrial design
award in 1973, and the National Design Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.
The Vignelli Center for Design Studies will open in Rochester, New York in 2008, a research center
for worldwide design and a collection of archive materials from the major practitioners of
contemporary design. (See attached photo.)
Since this year’s Language Week focuses on the theme “Food and Feasts in Italian Language and
Culture,” the Vignellis are donating to the Institute a large quantity of plates, splendid examples of
their tableware design.
Their lecture, “Design Is One,” will be repeated at the prestigious Modern Art Museum of Fort
Worth (designed by the noted Japanese architect Tadao Ando), in recognition of the vast territory,
including Texas, covered by the Los Angeles Institute.