The exhibition-game “Clocked. This is not an escape room. On the history of design", conceived and promoted by the Circuito Lombardo Musei Design with the contribution of the Cariplo Foundation and in collaboration with the ADI Design Museum , inaugurates a new interactive, playful and experiential way of admiring and learning about the world of design and its protagonists . In line with the most current trends that see game design as a cultural design tool , from 4 to 29 October 2023 , the basement of the museum will be set up with sixteen of the most famous Made in Italy design objects to mark a playing field divided into stations, in which the playing public is called to discover the history of Italian design through a ludic-investigative journey that proceeds through clues to interpret and mysteries to reveal .

The scheme of the game - carefully studied by Marta Palvarini, curator of the project, together with a team - moves on an ideal timeline that leads the players by the hand along the history of Made in Italy design objects.

The end of the story can only be reached by answering all the puzzles exactly: each correct answer leads to the unveiling of the next stage and the possibility of reaching the end of the journey. In search of the many hidden – sometimes misleading – clues present in each station, the players-audience can go back to the previous stations, observe and touch clues, interact with the objects present, unhinging the idea of passive fruition that is often associated with museum visits .

The game-path takes place in teams of up to ten members who can present themselves at the museum already formed or set up on the spot with the help of the mediators present. Indeed, among the aims of the project there is also that of promoting a collective fruition of the museum space as opposed to more solitary and individual experiences.

The dual objective proposed to the public is to have fun - testing yourself with investigative mini-games - and to reach the end of the path. Which is then that of Italian design, with its precious past, its lively present and a future yet to be written.

This is why the game does not end with the experience at the ADI Design Museum, but encourages the public to continue to a subsequent phase: at the end of the game in the Milanese museum, each participant will be provided with a personalized card to be completed by 17 December with three "missions" to 14 other museums and museum-archives of the Lombard Circuit.

Once you have finished your card and solved the puzzles it contains, players will be given a mysterious "postcard from the future".