When a scooter becomes art

Series Off Series is an ongoing exhibition on modern Italian design at the National Museum of China.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Vespa is among some 200 Italian designs that are shown at Series Off Series. Other eye-catching objects include a Borsalino hat that was worn by Humphrey Bogart in the classic 1943 movie Casablanca and French creator Philippe Starck's unconventional citrus squeezers which resemble a squid.

"The exhibition navigates Italian creativity by displaying designs that are put into big and small-scale production for daily use and also items that were produced as limited editions," says Andrea Cancellato, director general of Triennale di Milano, which co-organized the exhibition.

A bulk of the works on show are from the collection of Triennale di Milano's design museum.

Ettore Francesco Sequi, the Italian ambassador to China, says the word "Italy" means design and to know "what is Italian design", one needs to understand how the creative industry works in the country.

He says the objects at the exhibition show not only a combination of beauty and function but also a pursuit of high quality and energy saving; and they demonstrate that Italy's design industry holds dear to high standards through an emphasis on innovation and low cost.

A fine example: a Solar Bottle invented based on the solar water-disinfection system, an inexpensive method developed in the 1980s to purify water by using solar energy.