The idea of a quality of life based on high handcraft-manufacturing requirements in their interaction with an industrialised society has an important part – beyond the particular case - in the Expo 2015 project. It’s in the post war period that in Milan the strategic question of a “social art” is raised, as defined by the experience of the artistic section of the Belgium Labor Party, put into practice in the activity of the Brussels People’s House. The research of better living collective standards sustained by a concrete commitment in the improvement of the social housing and the applied art system is expressed with a series of exhibi tions. In Milan with the Regional Lombard Exhibition of decorative arts of the Human Society in 1919 – contemporary to Bauhaus in Weimar- and later on with the Biennial of decorative arts in Monza (1923-1930) and again in Milan in 1933 with the 5th Triennial, (showcase of urban planning, industrial arts and most innovative artistic productions) that acquires immediately a world level. These issues are still today the driving force of the Milanese Triennial activity.