The Cathedral of the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan hosts, from 31 October to 9 November 2025, the exhibition “An Archive of Possible Machines – 80 years of Candy: visionary technologies from the archive”a project by Mattia Balsamini curated by Andrea Tinterri, created with the patronage of the Municipality of Milan. The event is part of the calendar of celebrations for the 80th anniversary of Candy that since 1945 it makes domestic technology simpler, more intuitive and closer to people, contributing over the years to the social and cultural development of the country.
“Candy represents a fundamental page of technological and social progress in Italy, having transformed the daily habits and consumption of millions of families. It is a story that interweaves cultural, entrepreneurial and design history, a tradition that in Haier Europe we carry forward with pride, strengthening our roots in Italy and confirming Candy’s ability to look to the future without forgetting its roots. With this exhibition we celebrate the legacy of a brand that has spread Italian ingenuity and design throughout the world and which today looks forward with an international and sustainable vision”, declares Karim BruneauDirector of Communications and Institutional Relations Haier Europe. The exhibition itinerary intertwines art, design and technology, providing a contemporary reading of the Candy archive and the role that household appliances have had in the transformation of the domestic imagination. On display are ten unpublished photographic works by Mattia Balsamini which, through an essential and powerful visual language, reactivate the history of twentieth-century design and open up possible trajectories. The works are configured as suspended images resurfaced from the archive: latent spaces never really explored, which the artist reworks to generate a new visual and cultural imagination.
“Candy has always interpreted design as a language capable of improving people’s lives. From the first Italian automatic washing machine to connected appliances, each product is born from an idea of intelligent functionality, where form follows use and innovation becomes part of the domestic experience. These artistic projects therefore tell the story of the ability to transform technology into a familiar gesture, to make design accessible and human, capable of profoundly impacting the living culture in Italy and beyond”, underlines Federico Ferretti, Head of Design, Med Haier Europe.
“Each phase of this photographic series is the result of judgment and craft, and intentionally evokes that chain of minds – engineers, draftsmen, designers – that generated the machines themselves. In a time of infinite images produced, I tried to activate a different path: an experiment on the value of the process, of shared authorship and of the slow construction of images”, says Matteo Balsamini. The exhibition is presented as a single installation, conceived by Balsamini together with Studio Gisto, which combines some of the brand’s iconic products with materials and objects recovered directly from the company’s industrial plants. Shelves, deprived of their original function, become an integral part of the exhibition, transforming into narrative elements: an exhibition device that brings out the legacy and makes it tangible in the exhibition space. The result is a core sampling of Candy’s eighty years, a story that oscillates between evocation and visionary speculation, capable of activating a shared memory and a reflection on the relationship between technology, living and culture.
“Balsamini’s research frees itself from an easy hagiographic re-enactment, to stimulate those spaces of the archive that are still latent and waiting to be triggered. Ten images that question memory as a space of possibilities, as matter not yet sedimented and therefore malleable”, states Andrea Tinterri. At the end of the exhibition itinerary, an area dedicated to Candy MultiWash, the first washing machine with three independent baskets in a single machine capable of simultaneously managing three different laundry items and revolutionizing the way of experiencing laundry, is offered to the public as a concrete symbol of looking at the present. Created to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the brand, MultiWash represents the natural evolution of a path that has always combined technology, design and attention to people.
After having crossed the timeline dedicated to Candy’s iconic products – a journey between past and future that culminates with a first taste of Candy “New Era”, a prototype that anticipates the new evolutionary lines of the brand – visitors are led towards an immersive space designed to capture the gaze and offer a preview of the imminent future. Inside, the MultiWash reveals itself as a design object and protagonist of a visual and sound narrative. The experience accompanies the visitor in a sensorial story that translates the essence of Candy innovation into images and sounds: transforming imagination into reality, with infinite possible combinations thanks to the three independent baskets of the new washing machine. MultiWash is the result of the work of the Haier Europe R&D team and an open innovation approach which, through social listening, collects people’s real needs and transforms them into concrete solutions for everyday life.
MultiWash is the first washing machine equipped with three independent baskets in a single machine, capable of simultaneously managing three different laundry items. A revolutionary product that made its first appearance at Ifa 2025, winning the attention of the public and becoming viral on social media for its originality and concreteness, winning the Reviewed Award among the most interesting innovations of the fair. With MultiWash, Candy redefines the way of experiencing laundry. MultiWash will be available in three configurations designed to adapt to different needs and spaces. The first to debut, in December, will be the 107 cm high version.
The exhibition ends with a space dedicated to today’s Candy, in which the visitor is invited to discover the more contemporary dimension of the brand. An environment that recounts the lively and current presence of Candy, through a selection of appliances from today’s range, symbols of a technology that is now an integral part of daily life. Alongside these, historical objects and memorabilia evoke the famous sports sponsorships and iconic moments that contributed to building the collective imagination of the brand.
Today Candy looks to the future with the same audacity with which it marked the past. With a clear vision and a strong drive for innovation, the brand never stops evolving, confirming itself capable, for eighty years, of bringing Italian design to the world and of continuing to redefine the concept of the smart home.