The Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Torch represents a refined design object – a complex and fascinating project, rich in meaning and content.
Commissioned by ENI, Premium Partner of the Games, and developed in collaboration with Versalis, the project bears the prestigious signature of the studio CRA – Carlo Ratti Associati, with engineering and production by Cavagna Group.
The Olympic Torch can be read as a kind of Manifesto of Contemporary Design, embodying a concentrated expression of Innovation, Sustainability, and Semantics.
Much is already conveyed by its iconic name, “Essential,” an explicit and meaningful reference to the well-known principle articulated by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: “Less is more.”
Essential fits within a tradition of essential and restrained Olympic design, recalling – in philosophy – the torch designed by Sori Yanagi for Tokyo 1964, inspired by principles of subtraction and clarity.
The torch is made primarily of recycled aluminum and brass, weighs approximately 1,060 grams when empty, and is designed to be reusable: each burner can be refilled up to ten times.
The body of the torch is coated with a PVD finish – a high-performance treatment resistant to heat and wear – engineered to withstand multiple ignition cycles and winter weather conditions.
The burner is powered by bio-LPG, a fuel produced at Eni’s Enilive biorefinery in Sicily and derived from 100% renewable feedstocks, including used cooking oils and agro-industrial residues.
For the first time in Olympic history, the ignition mechanism is visible: a longitudinal slit along the body of the torch allows viewers to see the moment the flame comes to life, transforming ignition into a shared and legible gesture.
The flame has a warm yellow tone, designed to ensure maximum visibility both in natural light and in television broadcasts, symbolically recalling the fire lit in Olympia, Greece.
Two versions are planned: one for the Olympic Games, featuring blue-green tones, and one for the Paralympic Games, characterized by bronze shades.
Both versions feature a reflective and iridescent PVD finish that, in low-light conditions, makes the body nearly invisible, creating the impression that the flame is floating in space.
Alongside the torch, the project also includes a mini-cauldron designed as a traveling brazier for celebrations along the relay route, to be used in approximately 80 public events.
Its geometry, defined by sculpted blades, harnesses a Venturi effect that shapes the flame into a vertical vortex, making it longer and more stable without increasing gas consumption.
The system is engineered to operate even in extreme conditions, down to –20°C (–4°F).
The surfaces feature the same PVD finish as the torch, ensuring visual coherence and transferring the same combustion logic from an individual scale to a collective and ceremonial dimension.
Carlo Ratti, Founding Partner of CRA, summarizes the reasoning process that led to the torch’s creation: “Designing a torch is often a bodywork exercise – you start from the burner and add a shell around it. In this case, we did exactly the opposite. We asked ourselves what the minimum torch would be to design around the burner, placing the flame at the center and reducing everything else to the essential. Sustainability means not using what is unnecessary. So what we did was put the flame at the center and minimize everything else.”
Particularly moving are the words with which the designer, a professor at MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston – describes his approach to the project: “The challenge was not to design an object, but a phenomenon. Fire changes continuously depending on movement, wind, altitude, and temperature. We had to accept this instability and work backward, designing around something alive while ensuring flawless performance under all conditions.”
The project’s creator emphasizes the central role of Sustainability in Essential, which shaped the design in multiple ways: “Sustainability begins with using less, and in this case it takes many forms. For example, creating a minimal surface around the burner. Many of the torch’s materials are already recycled and recyclable at end of life, such as aluminum. This time, we designed the first refillable torch: the same torch can be reused by adding biofuel, reducing the total number of torches by tenfold.”
The Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Torch therefore represents a truly advanced and evolved design object, fully in tune with the spirit of our time.
Its design process constitutes a sophisticated and thoughtful reinterpretation of the “Less is more” philosophy, leading to a true architecture of fire, conceived to ensure that the flame remains the undisputed protagonist of the scene, free from unnecessary embellishments or superstructures.
Carlo Ratti’s final comment is direct and striking – more illuminating than a hundred design treatises: “The most powerful symbols are those that know how to step back.”
