Pio Manzù, son of the famous sculptor Giacomo Manzù, was a young designer and one of the founder members of the ‘International Research Centre on Environmental Structures’. An internationally trained designer and graduate of the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm. He distinguished himself as the designer of one of the most successful models of the Italian motor-car industry, the Fiat 127, as well as of numerous vehicle prototypes of innovative content from both the formal and technical points of view. Such as the NSU – Autonova GT e Fam, the Autobianchi Coupé and the City-Taxi. Car design earned him numerous acknowledgements and awards; in 1962 he won the prestigious international Année Automobile Award with a prototype built by Pininfarina and exhibited at the London Motor Show. He combined critical reflection with his design activity, cultivating a creative effort at no time unrelated to a broad-ranging consideration of the function of design and themes of mobility.
In May 1969, at the early age of thirty, Pio Manzù died in a tragic road accident while on his way to Turin. In memory of their prematurely deceased friend, the founder members decided to call the Institute the ‘Pio Manzù International Research Centre’.

“Man does not exist merely to use objects and even less – as people would have us believe today – to consume products. He is faced continually with the demands that his conscience places on his intentions. And these demands cannot be met merely by means of well-designed utilitarian objects. In terms of self-realisation and production, conscience needs to address continually all the complex problems inherent in its own abilities of representation and experience.”  Pio Manzù