Audi has made a habit of using Milan as a stage for its most forward-looking ideas, and in 2025 the brand did it again by utilizing the space for the unveiling of the Audi Concept C. This new car isn’t just a design study; it was the physical embodiment of Audi’s new philosophy—one that reduces complexity to clarity, both in form and in corporate direction.
SPACE FOR IDEAS
The setting was no accident. Audi House of Progress, located in the historic Portrait Milano complex, served as the venue. Once a 16th-century archiepiscopal seminary, the site has since been transformed into a hub for culture, design, and innovation in the heart of the city’s Quadrilatero district. Audi opened House of Progress to the public in 2017, and it has since become the brand’s creative anchor during Milan Design Week and FuoriSalone.
House of Progress isn’t just a showroom—it’s a cultural statement. Positioned where history meets contemporary design, the space blends old-world architecture with forward-looking ideas. For Audi, it has become the place to showcase values that extend beyond automobiles: sustainability, creativity, and the application of technology to improve human well-being. Milan, long regarded as the world’s design capital, gives Audi both the credibility and the visibility to tie its new design language to a larger cultural dialogue.
THE CONCEPT C
Into this backdrop stepped the Concept C. A compact, two-seat electric sports car, it marks the first true manifestation of Audi’s new “radical simplicity” design philosophy. The lines were minimal, the geometry clean, and nothing was present that didn’t serve a purpose. At the front is the vertical frame, inspired by the Auto Union Type C Grand Prix car of 1936 and later echoed by the third-generation (C6) Audi A6. This upright grille carries the rings and housed a new four-element light signature that will shape the face of future models.
The profile tells the rest of the story: a strong shoulder line, a cabin pushed rearward by a central battery layout, and an electrically retractable hardtop that appears similar in design to the mechanism used on the current Porsche 911 Targa. Audi calls it a monolithic silhouette that transforms at will into an open-air experience. Finished in Titanium, the car emphasizes precision and restraint—a visual cue that communicates the brand’s future design language will be less about shock value and more about timeless design.
WHY NOW? WHY MILAN?
For Audi, showing Concept C in Milan went beyond product. CEO Gernot Döllner framed the car as part of a broader realignment. “Clarity is an ethos and the compass that will guide Audi through the times ahead,” he said. That clarity applies not only to design, but to how the company is restructuring itself to focus on essentials—investing in new models, streamlining processes, and preparing for future challenges such as the transition to electrification and the brand’s entry into Formula 1.
House of Progress provides the right backdrop for that message. The building’s Renaissance roots tie it back to an era of humanistic innovation, a fitting parallel for a company that wants to be seen as both technical and cultural. Since 2014, Audi had used Milan Design Week to give voice to its future technologies. In 2025, both at Milan Design Week and again this week for Concept C, House of Progress wasn’t just an event space; it was where Audi’s past, present, and future converged in one clear message.
DEFINING MOMENT
Concept C is more than another concept car. It is Audi staking a claim on where its design and corporate identity need to go in the coming decade. By tying the debut to Milan and the House of Progress, the four rings’ statement seemed to communicate this is as much about culture as it was about cars.
As Audi had done with the Avus quattro in 1991 or the Rosemeyer in 2000, the brand once again built a concept to signal intent. This time, however, the message isn’t about engine configuration or performance numbers. It is about clarity—a distilled vision of Audi design and purpose. And it seems there is no better place to tell the story of design than Milan, in a venue where history and innovation already shared the same walls.
MORE INFORMATION
Audi House of Progress – Milan
Corso Venezia, 11, 20121 Milano, MI, Italy (MAP LINK)
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