This article pays tribute to Lyda Levi, a Milanese designer and entrepreneur whose role in the development of Italian craft and design in the postwar period has been forgotten. Born in 1922, Lyda fled Nazi persecution to Switzerland during the Second World War. When she returned to Milan in 1945, she was involved in the so-called Exodus operation that helped the Holocaust survivors to mÃgrate to Palestine. In 1946 architect Piero Bottoni, appointed Special Commissioner of the Triennale di Milano by the Committee of National Liberation, hired Lyda to collaborate in the organization of the 8th Triennale, which launched her in the fields of design and applied arts. After participating in T8, she was in charge of the craft section in the Public Relations Office for the Marshall Plan from 1948 to 1953. In 1956, during a trip to the United States for the magazine House Beautiful, she got acquainted in San Francisco with Elinor and John McGuire and their rattan furniture line. Some years later, she launched the successfull Lyda Levi-McGuire furniture line which combined new American trends with the expertise of Italian designers and craftsmen.
