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Seventy years after the 1956 Winter Olympics, on Monday, January 26, 2026, the Olympic Flame returns to Cortina d’Ampezzo. In the lead-up to the XXV Winter Olympic Games, the torch once again travels through the streets of the Queen of the Dolomites. Over the course of two months, it will cross all Italian regions along a journey of more than 12,000 kilometers, before arriving in Milan on February 6—the day of the Opening Ceremony of the XXV Winter Olympic Games.
In the ritual of the Olympic Games, few objects carry such a powerful symbolic weight relative to their size as the torch. Small, easy to handle, seemingly simple, it is in fact a concentration of meanings: memory, technology, collective identity, and ritual. At Milano Cortina 2026, this delicate balance is not entrusted to emphasis or ornament, but to a clear and deliberate stance. The torch is called Essential, and its very name reveals the direction of the project: stripping away everything that is not necessary so that the true protagonist—the flame—can emerge unfiltered.
The starting point is not the outer shell, but the functional core. Designed by Carlo Ratti Associati, the project is rooted in a seemingly counterintuitive question: can a torch function without drawing attention to itself? The answer takes shape in an object built around a high-performance burner, as if the design followed the flame rather than the other way around. From this approach comes an essential geometry, in which every line has a technical justification before an aesthetic one.
This is not minimalism as a style, but as a process: subtracting to make room. The torch appears slender, balanced, free of superfluous elements. It does not seek to be a sculpture or a self-referential symbol; instead, it acts as a support, a visual threshold that introduces the flame without overshadowing it. In images, as in real life, the effect is consistent: the object does not dominate the scene—it organizes it.
Marking a clear departure from many torches of the past is the decision to make visible what is usually hidden. A vertical slit runs through the body of the torch, allowing the internal mechanism to be seen—the exact point at which the fire comes to life. This is a narrative gesture even before it is a technical one: shifting attention from appearance to function, from surface to process.
If the form avoids spectacle, the surface works more subtly. Essential establishes a constant dialogue with light and its surrounding environment. The two versions—Olympic and Paralympic—share a reflective, iridescent finish, while differing in color: : blue-green tones for the Olympic torch, warm bronze hues for the Paralympic one.
The surface treatment, achieved through high-resistance PVD coating, serves more than a protective function. It turns the torch into a sensitive surface: reflecting snow, absorbing the colors of the sky, returning fragments of the urban or natural context in which it moves. It does not impose a single image, but changes its appearance depending on place. This choice aligns with the idea of a distributed Olympics, one that crosses different territories without reducing them to a single iconography.
Essentials also produce measurable effects. The structure—largely composed of recycled materials, particularly an aluminum and brass alloy—reaches a weight of approximately 1,060 grams (excluding the fuel canister). This is no minor detail: an Olympic relay involves thousands of handovers, unpredictable weather conditions, and bodies of all kinds. Here, lightness is not a stylistic flourish but an operational necessity. A torch must be stable, manageable, and reliable. Every unnecessary gram becomes fatigue; every imbalance, a risk. Essential responds with an almost industrial logic: reducing non-functional mass to increase control and safety.
In the context of major global events, environmental concerns often remain confined to communication strategies. In the case of Milano Cortina 2026, several decisions directly shape the structure of the product. The torch has been designed to be reused and refilled up to ten times, significantly reducing the total number of units required.
Material choices also follow certified criteria: according to official documentation, these are the first Olympic torches to receive ReMade Class A certification for recycled content. Equal care has been taken with the flame itself: the burner uses bio-LPG derived from renewable sources such as used cooking oils and agro-industrial residues, aiming to produce a warm, natural-colored flame—closer to the original imagery of fire.
The project is the result of a fully Italian supply chain: development by Eni with Versalis, design by Carlo Ratti Associati, and engineering and production by Cavagna Group. It is no coincidence that the official unveiling took place in symbolic venues of contemporary culture such as Triennale Milano and Expo Osaka.
The deeper meaning of Essential fully emerges along the journey of the Olympic Flame. Designed to traverse Italy in a capillary way, the relay becomes the ideal context for an object that does not seek centrality. Its shifting surface adapts to places, reflects them, and returns them in ever-changing images: historic centers, suburbs, alpine valleys, metropolises. In this journey, the torch is not merely a technical support, but a narrative tool. The slit revealing the heart of the burner visually accompanies the idea of a transparent, shared journey. Each of the 10,000 torchbearers adds a fragment; each stage contributes to a collective story in which design does not dominate the territory, but becomes its echo.
Milano Cortina 2026 thus presents itself as a distributed Olympics, made of connections rather than concentrations. The torch acts as a bridge between different communities, maintaining a recognizable yet non-invasive identity. Ultimately, the Milano Cortina 2026 torch consciously renounces the “special effect.” It does not seek iconic status through eccentric forms or overloaded narratives, but builds it through discipline, control, and restraint. It is precisely by choosing to remain in the background that, when the flame is lit, everything suddenly finds its meaning.
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