collection
Italy: object, interior, radical design
Italy as a laboratory where industry, craft, and the anti-functional gesture argue inside a single object.
About this collection
The Italian case is interesting because industrial production and radical criticism of that production existed simultaneously and were often funded by the same manufacturers. The route follows this argument through objects.
Industry and method
- Olivetti: the company as a total design project — a company where object, graphics, and town were one commission.
- Olivetti Showroom / Carlo Scarpa — a retail point as an architectural work.
- Superleggera — super-lightness as craft and industrial calculation.
The radical gesture
- Radical Design — protest, utopia, and anti-commercial form.
- Mezzadro — a ready-made component moved into the interior.
- Sacco — a form that abandoned the frame.
- UP5/UP6 — an inflatable object as a statement.
The postmodern turn
- Memphis — colour, play, and anti-functional energy.
- Ettore Sottsass — radical design and Memphis.
- Carlton — a bookcase as a postmodern figure.
- Postmodernism — quotation, irony, and the return of the sign.