LUCE estratti LUCE 319_Moro_Intervista con Maurizio Rossi | Page 7

School of Design in New York, at KTH Royal
Institute of Technology in Stockholm and in other
international centres. Compared to Italy, there
is a fundamental difference, the Master courses
are two-year courses of the faculty of Architecture
or Engineering. In Italy, it is a one-year post-
graduate Master course, entirely and exclusively
centred on Lighting Design, and therefore there
is a double advantage: it is more economical
because registration costs less and the quality
is better because it focusses for one year on
the topic of Lighting only. Another fundamental
difference is the internship in the sector
companies or professional studios, which we can
guarantee because Milan is the centre of
a production centre of primary importance on
a global scale.
What are the elements, th e themes that
have been discussed, the value of the teachers’
individual contributions, not only with regard
to technique but also the vision, and the good
internal organization in the Master course
you are the Director of?
With regard to the topics of the Master course,
after the basic topics, five different contexts
related to lighting are studied: urban landscape,
retail, lighting for live shows, hospitality and
cultural heritage. The last is a very important
topic in Italy, in particular in the application
of the new technologies, and this was also noted
at the recent important meeting of AIDI held
in Rome, at the Vatican Museums, coordinated
by Alessandra Reggiani
Every year we update the programmes trying
to introduce novelties such as the new concepts
of Smart Lighting. Contemporary lighting becomes
more functional and even though it is a
technologically avant-garde instrument,
it should always be easy to manage in individual
homes and also in work-areas, making users
more aware of the new potentialities.
In this Master degree course, our thanks go to the
technicians and professionals in the sector who
participate as teachers, and to the companies
that have recognized the validity of the course
and have endorsed it over the years, through
sponsorships. Thanks also to the Laboratory staff,
Fulvio Musante, Andrea Siniscalco, Daria Casciani,
Helena Gentili and Francesco Murano.
Where do the students come from and what are
the main reasons they joined this Master course ?
Since when the course became international
three years ago, the Master course is entirely
and exclusively in English. In the case of the
few hours of seminars in Italian, there is a
professional simultaneous translation service
available for the students. In 2016, 104 companies
and professionals from all around the world,
and 90% from Europe, contacted us to register
trainees. In fact the requests made by the
companies and professional studios are more
than twice our capacity to accept students
in the training course.
We have a large number of foreign students,
in fact also in the Master course this year 60%
of the students are foreigners: from South America
(Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Ecuador) from the Middle
East (Iran, Turkey), from Asia (India, Indonesia,
Vietnam, Philippines), from Europe (France, Spain,
Greece, Russia, Denmark) from Africa (Morocco,
Tunisia) and from America (United States).
Since last year we have had to limit the number
of participants to a maximum of 50, in order to
respect the capacity of the Laboratory, in view of
the large number of applications to participate.
How does the Polytechnic Master course compare
with the international context?
In an international context, in these years I have
met the Directors of the principal Master courses
in Lighting; at UCL in London, at the Parsons
What are the future prospects in the professional
field for these young people after the internship
with professionals or the partner companies ?
The results are excellent, 80 per cent of the
students of the Master course finds employment
within a year after completing our course. Since
a couple of years we also have a dedicated
channel on youtube where the students describe
their experiences, their videos can be seen
at: http://www.polidesign.net/it/lighting
We are also present in the social media, such
as facebook, twitter and flickr.
Do you feel that a graduate course in the
Lighting engineering sector is necessary
to prevent the increase in the number
of “last minute experts” in the sector?
Yes. Our country is one of the leading producers
in the sector, and there are no graduate or a
post-graduate Master courses in Lighting.
Furthermore there are very few faculty members
(and you can count them on the fingers of your
hand) who teach subjects related to the Lighting
sector, and they come from different academic
disciplines. For example, in an important context
such as in the Milan area, there are only two
of us, Francesco Murano and I. There is also
a general lack of coordination and political
relevance on a national scale in this sector, which
instead would be desirable in order to organize
new graduate courses which are even more
difficult to start currently in Italy due to the
new legislative situation of the Universities. 
PROJECT WORK
Lighting for Retail | Docenti: Carlo D’Alesio, Piero Santoro
Students: Nityah Bhorra, Giovanbattista Cannella, Shanthosh Chandrasekar,
Daniel Guillermo Schatti Sanchez
Students: Camille Coudret, Sebastiano Garofalo, Chiara Lamberti, Maria Cristina Pellegrino
INTERVIEWS / LUCE 319
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