＞ design and industrial design
＞ conceiving consumer goods
＞ things,objects and products
＞ ethics and aesthetics
＞ useful and useless
＞ hybrid realities
＞ innovation through culture
＞ traditions and transformations
In these latest years,if I look at the experiences I have had in exercising the theoretical dimension of design,I recognize that some of them have been accompanied by the method of anthology:the collection of essays,or of selected pages,of a work,a designer,a writer.I discovered its intrinsic scientific utility alongside its educational one,and above all the sense of responsibility to be borne by those who work anthologically in the texts of others in order to seek an intellectual balance between the author's words and the sense of individual selection.In the case in point,appearances are deceptive and,even if those who were the object of investigation coincided with those who carried them out,there was no shortage of uncertainties,which were actually duplicated given the obvious difficulty of acting with the necessary critical distance.The result,already illustrated elsewhere,was to proceed by using new interpretation keys capable of reconnecting the excerpted passages within the frame of the word"teaching."The method used was that of taking apart and sewing back together what I chose to re-examine,and I hope this mode of storytelling will persuasively restore the value of chronological summary along with that of a personal and still responsive testimony of my design.
Design and industrial design
ubiquity
from Il design è ubiquo|Lectures 12013
design autonomy
from Dispute vere e presunte,DIID 57|2012
inevitably industrial
from Naturalezza industriale,DIID 55 |2012
teachings in doing
from Design fra identità e diversità，DIID 42—43|2009
matter and materials
from Materiali e natura,DIID 38|2008
training and informing
from Designer After School,DIID 32|2007
difference and identity
from Difference e Design,DIID 24—25|2006
the event of the exhibit
from Fairs for Design,DIID 17|2005
virtual architectural complexes
from Frontiere della grafica e della comunicazione visiva e multimediale,DIID 16|2005
it is design
from Design is everywhere,DIID 7|2003
the language of the object
from Global design/Ethics plus,DIID 3—4|2003
prospective scenarios
from Il disegno industriale,DIID 1|2002
A cautious dichotomy—superfluous and advantageous as the case may be—accompanies the use of the expressions"design"and"industrial design."The former is more flexible,dynamic and outside of time;the latter is clear,univocal,and historicized.While industrial design represented the emancipation of design models in order to conceive the products of modernity,design has become a system for representing,even before the individual products,the needs that generate them and the services that qualify them.It is not a matter of choosing between the two positions,but of grasping the differences in how a design's story is told,while being fully aware that this starts from the choice of words.
ubiquity ＞ […] Design is ubiquitous because by changing its appearance it tends to be a Zelig.Design is ubiquitous because,in overcoming all postindustrial forecasts,every day it builds new things and new forms of expression in things.Design is ubiquitous in embodying ethical and salvific positions,formalist drifts and drifts of product categories,all at the same time.
Design is ubiquitous for how it is shaped with respect to the demands arising from the practical culture of industrial design and from the ideological and traditional culture of craftsmanship.
Design is ubiquitous for how it has traversed the economy and culture of industrialism and modernity,of the Postmodern and of post-industrialism,and in fact the very culture of the intangible in the information society.
Design is ubiquitous if defined,according to the interpretation that has been consolidated in the Roman school,as a design of the artificial,of all that is artificial—and then also as representation of the material culture and interpreter of man's inexhaustible needs,as he transforms these needs into products destined to improve his life and his social relations.
Saying that design is ubiquitous—if we consider articles of use in their numbers and the roles they are actually assigned—may appear to be a totally obvious statement.But as a declaration it is only apparently predictable,because the spread and unbelievable metamorphosis of the object landscape that surrounds us is,above all,theoretical.What does this mean? Design has become a global culture which,in the name of innovation articulated in progress,travels the planet without necessarily producing stability,but rather"dynamic equilibria"between economies,societies,and cultures.It therefore does not solve problems,but actually continuously raises new ones.This is not so much a mischievous speculation on the ambiguous concept of the elusiveness of the value of"consumer goods，"as the fact that design acts so that the system will never stop,creating the conditions for emancipating the culture of design even before that of the object.Only in this way can it produce research and give itself,beyond any academic and scientific dispute,the sense of a natural need in training.
In the case of training,the ubiquity of design is represented by an incontrovertible fact:in recent times,this is the discipline that has followed,and continues to follow,with greater tension and reflection,the change of professions in the field of designing the artificial,accompanies them,and offers different solutions,accepting the difficult task of grappling with the evolving figure of the designer.No easy assignment,it is the harbinger of uncertainties.
Design is ubiquitous,then,not because objects are everywhere.It is ubiquitous for the quantity of designs that preceded that multitude of objects.It is Quaroni's theory of diffuse design that makes many able to anticipate small changes and modifications,by acting as an aware designer in one's own real world.It consequently promotes change through an interstitial innovation,one without revolutions,without proclamations,but by defending the principle of the possibility of doing-anywhere and no matter what.Objects,then,do not prove theses.If anything,they interpret them,refute them,verify them.But beware:however much this might appear inevitable and democratic,because it is within everyone's reach,the populism of design-of which design is,for its share,guilty-lies in ambush […].
The ubiquity of design promotes various slogans,starting from"design by all,to design for all"-an expression that marks its level of disciplinary and cultural expansion […].
Design is ubiquitous because it has"spontaneously changed"：it is no longer as it was understood between the 1970s and 1980s,a formal design,a design to solve technical questions by combining them with consistent aesthetic solutions.In the current logics that feed economic transformations,design is if anything the great feeder of the energy of innovation,which is to say"of the great demand to which all world industry refers."With these premises,design and its complex system are not called upon,as Andrea Branzi says,to produce masterworks,but to change scenarios,to create shifts in meaning and then to serve as"permanent producers of offers of ideas."[…].Design is ubiquitous when it explores the highest levels of technological innovation,from which are born the strategies destined to develop scenarios for the future by elaborating technical objects,articles of use not yet in production,while anticipating new and unimaginable performance by the artefact,new materials,and their unsuspected applications for a market that unites the demand of advanced industrial societies with that of developing societies […].
design autonomy ＞ Starting already from the Renaissance(but perhaps earlier)，the distinction between designing and fabricating a work,and therefore the roles and functions of the implied subjects,was being emancipated.Today,like then,many artisans have the"ability to do"but might not possess the ingenuity needed to conceive and fabricate something that was not there before.They know how,when needed,to update a consolidated type,but not to replace it.With the arrival of scientific discoveries,the somewhat Darwinian evolution of models(club,rock,spear,arrow,crossbow,revolver,rifle,machine gun,and so on)gradually separated those who design new things from those who make them.In the transition to the age of the Industrial Revolution,this process was completed,involving large-scale numbers in production.At this point,the figure of the designer became complete,and design was stabilized as an autonomous discipline.Walter Gropius,in conceiving the Bauhaus School,must also be connected to these conclusions;although giving rise to an unrepeatable season of transversality between art,design,and architect,he believed in and acted in accordance with the separation of the roles-a division by no accident enshrined by a manifesto written by designers.Mies Van der Rohe,Paul Klee,Kandiskij,and Hannes Meier were a crucial reference for entire generations in the 20th-century debate between technology and the culture of design,giving rise to an endless catalogue of new products,still sought after today by the market,with the acceptance of John Ruskin and William Morris's Arts and Crafts movement.What school,then,can imagine not teaching the design's autonomy from its becoming a product? Especially in the design of hybrid objects,self-design and self own production are certainly contemplated,but we like to consider this cautiously credible(pointed out because they are known)，as in the case of Michele De Lucchi who,in his famous"Private Collection，"makes this a specific occasion for artisinally inspired para-industrial experimentation.
This means discovering and using handicrafts as the rhetoric of making—by committing body and mind—tradition and innovation，"simultaneously，"through a process of"osmosis."
inevitably industrial ＞ From buttons to magnetic stripe cards，‘things’that take form as archetypes of themselves offer a natural path to design and a civil,basic solution in which acumen,utility and beauty serve as reciprocal causes and effects.In its critical conduct,it is a phenomenon of industrial design and production processes which proves that no impact is made on authentic good design by the obsession with emphasizing the intellectual property and ownership of creations.
Unsurprisingly,for some time now the topic at hand has been behind a rethink of the sense of creative parenthood of the ‘things’conceived and made in a post-industrial system which gives widespread,shared design a metaphorical role to describe the complexity of open-source design phenomena.Makers,self-production and social design are some of the many terms used to label the collaborative nature of modern design,especially when it is necessary to pick up on the cultural and political value that bridges the gap between ‘impersonal brilliance’and the new paradigms of utility and beauty which are meant to be accessible to everyone nowadays,regardless of their profile or status.
These thoughts lead us 40 years back in time to 1972，when Bruno Munari suggested giving the ‘Compasso d’oro'design award to ‘persons unknown’.He claimed that it should be presented to objects with a clear balance between materials,technology and function that made them timeless.They were salvaged from superfluousness because they could be traced back to economy of thought which went from the design phase to the warehouse.If there was any debate about the aesthetics of forms,the solution would lie in the inherent thinking of ‘design issues’.According to Munari,the nature of the objects meant that they had nothing to fear from technological innovation and the changing language of design.Indeed,new materials and technology would perhaps allow them to reinvent themselves and endure.They also owe their staying power to the fact that they do not present ambiguous symbols and—most importantly—they do not belong to social classes.They support the possibility and feasibility of the democracy of common sense and the sovereignty of good taste.Looking back,it is clear that this pairing gave an inevitable industrial character to every version of these spontaneous forms throughout their history.
teachings in doing ＞ So,Design(in the sense of industrial Design)and Designers(as the creators of the flow of products that pass through our daily lives)reflect an aspect of creativity that presupposes study in order to know,understand and be able to do:School.So,to understand how creativity is expressed in the Old World,we need to define the identifying traits of Design in Europe,looking at the proposals of our youth,just out of school,who are taking their first steps in their professional life:Design After School.We can take a general look at the unique traits of the schools and historic experiences that have been the reference points of so many identifying traits of European Design throughout the past century:from the Scandinavian School to the Anglo-Saxon School,from the Middle European School to the Mediterranean School(s)(Italy,France,Spain and Portugal).
In the Anglo-Saxon School,the identifying traits have roots in the major transformations straddling the 19th and 20th centuries,from the birth of Design with the industrial revolution,a revolution that generated movements like Arts &Crafts in England.In alternating positions that oppose industrial and artisanal production,for aesthetic or ideological reasons,which criticise the alienating aspect of work in industry,contrasting it with the creativity of artist-craftsmen,the need to train professionals for the requirements of new times was understood right from the time of Sir Henry Cole.Schools were thus opened for the study of new materials and their functional and aesthetic applications,productive methods and technologies,re-qualifying industrial production by preparing new Designers.
In addition to schools,applied arts museums were also opened,and the circulation of industrial repertoires was promoted through occasions for world-wide comparison,such as the World Fairs.It is in this context that experiences like Arts and Crafts were born,the movements of William Morris,and a school like the Royal College of Art;when it received the Royal Charter in 1967，its goals were ‘to advance learning,knowledge and professional competence particularly in the field of fine arts,in the principles and practice of art and Design in their relation to industrial and commercial processes and social developments and other subjects relating thereto through teaching,research and collaboration with industry and commerce’.This definition still applies to the training provided by the Anglo-Saxon School that dialectically interprets the relationship between the concreteness of pragmatism and the creative dimension,between technical control of the Design and the tension towards experimentation,between controlling the functions of the artefact and typological innovation,and in formal research the aesthetics of the approach to formal research of High-Tech are expressed.With the Werkbund,then Bauhaus schools,in Weimar and Dessau,the experience expressed in the Modern Movement(MM)was born,permeating all of Europe with its principles and theories,before spreading beyond its borders,to the point where historians have called the methods and expressive forms used by this movement ‘International Style’.
matter and materials ＞ In the beginning,matter was moulded to become a material,the fundamental element of all the manufactured items that have always surrounded us.Stone,clay and wood were used as instruments to erect and build objects,not just because they were accessible natural resources,but above all for their construction qualities,for their static strength,durability,workability,combinability with other materials,malleability,and beauty.
The focus was thus exclusively on natural materials,because they were functional,aesthetically pleasing,easy to use and readily available.
However,over time,the way we consider materials has changed considerably.
On the one hand,materials have interacted with craftsmanship,then with manufacturing techniques,modelling and modifying them to continuously adapt them to their own prerogatives.On the other,techniques—and subsequently language—have moulded materials,transforming them,expanding them,multiplying them making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between natural and artificial materials,or between the various categories and families.Indeed,in the 21st century a new way of understanding materials is being defined:they are no longer simply the constituent elements of a manufactured object;rather they are by themselves the form and function of the design.This has profoundly modified the physical and linguistic references that have always guided us in our day-to-day relationship with things,allowing us to interact with ‘the material’of artefacts using all of our senses.This is how the change in our relationship with materials—which from passive elements are becoming increasingly active—has created an unparalleled emotional tension,expanding the possibilities of design;while destroying codified balances and points of reference,both those linked to what the material is and to what it can do.
In this framework,Nature has always been a vast and inexhaustible source of inspiration for possible future design scenarios.In the past,however,the main goal was to imitate Nature in order to ensure that a new material or product would be accepted.When plastic(bakelite)was first introduced,its creators looked to Nature in order to give all the products created using this new material—which was extremely practical and low-cost—a faux-natural skin.Decorations and fake grains or imitation skin,as well as colours and morphology of previous,codified ‘Natural’materials were copied as closely as possible.The material's true nature thus took second place and instead was given a natural and familiar character;often,the material's very identity was sacrificed in exchange for a codifiable image based on individual memory.The focus was,in fact,less on the material's true nature,and more on the unchanging image it was supposed to transmit.
training and informing ＞ In recent years,the commitment of the university system in the formation of the Italian designer with proposals up to the task,was passionate involvement in national experiences.Various methods and theories of design,but common goals:young designers in a position to know what is necessary to understand what should be known to make innovations to be successful in a global market.
In private institutions,which are important educational assets,only in very rare cases does a professional relationship between business and young designers exist,since the relationship between business and schools is based on mutual benefits of the business-school relationship,and since it requires the development of research into new types of product,proposals that the school takes up as its theme of the courses,so that at the end of the experience,the company may have a low-cost"inventory of ideas"，without undertaking either the prototyping or engineering of proposals.
In the universities,on the other hand,the relationship with companies is aimed at conducting activities involving the training placements of the young in a direct relationship with the company,which the school supports with targeted tutoring to guarantee the student,from time to time,an entry into the world of work while protecting his/her creative and professional ability.
The results of the training are reflected in the ability of the young designers.
And the products designed by young designers for companies,are certainly a partial representation,but significant nonetheless for the answers that we were seeking.And a selection of the output of young designers is inevitably partial and tendentious.
Just think of"The New—Italian—Design"the exhibition organised at the Milan Triennale(January 20/25 April 2007)curated by Andrea Branzi,and conceived and coordinated by Silvana Annicchiarico.
The event,in fact,has generated much controversy because of its cultural framework and choices.
Andrea Branzi,on that occasion,selected projects and products by young designers that confirm a thesis of his:our country is home to a constellation of creative workshops that express a set of new ideas that are valuable in themselves,insofar as the backdrop they take place against and spread its innovation.
difference and identity ＞ In the culture of design,difference and identity both play a strategic and complementary role.
In any case,differences and identity(identification/individuation)are influenced by the reference framework:the site,the historical and cultural context,materials and technologies,history and the culture of specific geographical and/or social contexts.
In the field of design or better still,in the field of industrial design,identity and difference of the object or product system,play different roles and,compared to the past,they fulfil a specific task which is often fundamental if they want to be successful in a global market.
It's worth mentioning certain aspects of identity and difference in the field of industrial design,for instance"gender difference"，in other words,what tends to classify objects(that belong to the same grouping)according to the gender to which they are intended(man,woman,etc.).
Or,for example,the"difference"of products which,even if on sale all over the world,maintain their identity because they're linked to the specific geographical context of the market insofar as they are designed taking into account the differences that exist in material cultures:many accessories designed to cook and eat food or the furniture used in bedrooms or living rooms.
Or,again,the"difference"in the iconic value of the objects,in other words,how the success of some objects is dictated by their specific identity in a group of products with similar functions;their"identity"is more important than the quantity and quality of their technical characteristics(the iPod is an emblematic example).
However,it's more interesting to analyse how identity and difference become structured.
Designing industrial products involves creating objects for an ubiquitous market—with different histories and material cultures—and for groups with different needs.This is why industrial,large-scale production has,from time to time,tried to define a standard,in other words,a predefined characteristic or set of characteristics.By establishing standards,it's possible to sublimate all this"diversity"into a single"identity"in order to satisfy a global market.Or to"normalise"them and make them compatible with the needs of such"diversity".
In short,not products with many identities but many diversities,with a standardised identity compared to so many diversities.
The last century was characterised by Henry Ford's standardised mass production and the so-called assembly chain.This production method manufactured identical objects and managed to cheaply produce many objects.
The assembly chain eliminated any sort of style—as an element of difference—in the objects.Identity and normalisation were necessarily integrated into the objects to ensure maximum production yield and penetration of the market.
We have lived through an age in which production has changed very radically.
Today,with the advent of post-Fordism and the new technologies used in manufacturing,a new model has emerged—not always the same,but versatile and capable of adapting to new needs.
Today consumers can choose from a variety of different products.
Naturally,this increases supply and reduces production costs.
In some cases,the company can wait for individual clients to make a request and then satisfy him by assembling the right modules.By doing so,he can economically produce batches of just one unit.
Not all consumers realise they are making a sacrifice,but if the extent of the sacrifice is limited,then the consumer is more than happy and returns the favour by being loyal as well as being willing to pay a premium price.
Currently,many big companies are moving in this direction:for example,the multinational Nike wants to ensure that every client is able to personalise its shoes at a price that is almost identical to a standard pair.The Smart car is marketed with a whole range of parts that permit diversification,over and above the normal bodywork options(colour,interiors,type of wheel rims,etc.)，which is,in fact,considered as a combination of interchangeable parts.The client can assemble the various parts of the frame to create his"own"special car.
the event of the exhibit ＞ The international circuit of design fairs and exhibitions is an excuse to examine the relationship between the added value of a product,its innovative content,companies,designers and the influence of trends and the market on the characteristics of products.
These fairs/exhibitions are created to endorse companies and products;window-displays that on a regular basis propose new styles for industrial products,new types of objects,or are increasingly full of functional and technical content.
Initially created for"commercial"reasons,they also focus on experimentation and the challenge of innovation.These events dictate the success of designers and companies as well as finding markets for certain products.
They are boosted by the strategic contribution of communications media,specialised publishers and exhibit design.
Specific interest groups and businesses have developed thanks to these events which,amplified by the media,have reached beyond the companies,designers and new products and intercepted the enormous resources used in communications and the spectacularization of the event to attract the public at large and make them participate in the increasingly intense calendar of engagements that have become permanent events.
These events have adopted the methods used by fashion shows all around the world,events in which communications and presentation during shows has a predominant pre-textual function.Even in design exhibitions,media communications and the design of extremely creative and imaginative exhibits are even more important than the efforts of exhibiting companies to renew their productive processes,product types and performance characteristics.
The true performer is the exhibit and not the presentation of the product that isn't always innovative.
The design of the exhibit can be an excuse to represent a theme and/or an emotion.
In Earthly Paradise,an event of the Fuori Salone(Milan)in April 2003，Mendini designed a real"master plan"for a system of sets and backgrounds in which each of the famous designers designed freely,but tackled the specific theme and Mendini's interpretation expressed in the relational spaces and overall structure as well as in the overall communications project.
The places where we look after our body and our feelings become an earthly paradise,a place of well-being for all our senses.
The exhibit design can be a chance to represent the immaterial.
For instance,at the elegant Lexus exhibit at the Triennale,Kazuyo Sejima and Junya Ishigami tackle the immaterial and the absence of spatial reference points.In fact,the car is displayed by eliminating its presence in a milky space in which every material object disappears in the mists and absence of colour.
The design exhibit may be the chance to"monumentalise"cult design products.
The exhibit design can be a chance to experiment with stage effects.
For instance,in the 2005 Fuori Salone(Milan)where Vitra displayed its products in an exhibit designed to encourage the visitor to focus and concentrate on the work of Ronan and Erwan Bouroulecq.In fact it is the exhibition area that is highlighted,while the collections of products seem slightly out-of-focus and of secondary importance.
The exhibit design can be a chance to enhance a surprise effect.
For instance,the big Milanese Bruco di Recapito,a pneumatic,flexible,movable structure,gigantic in shape and size:a totem of immense communicative power on top of a building,with its face turned down towards the public.It is a playful and inspiring structure,very visible during the day and lit up at night,that fascinates people and invites them to enter.It acts as a meeting area for thematic exhibitions and displays for companies,designers and institutions.
The exhibit design can,finally,be a metaphoric Representation,for instance 100% Design in Tokyo where for over a year the exhibition areas were set up in containers.The assembly or organisation of a container acts as an urban passage,a metaphor of the warehouse and global trading of goods.The way the containers are arranged tends to build a fragment of the city of the exhibit in which the containers display a catalogue of exhibit projects that highlight the role of designers,rather than the products on display and illustrates all the possible approaches towards the culture of exhibit design.
virtual architectural complexes ＞ The introduction and transmission of information technologies in the fields of design and communications has radically changed the work of graphic artists.
In the past,communication designers used to graphically and typographically manipulate signs and letters to express various kinds of communications using two dimensional styles.
Today,they use a new,three-dimensional,dynamic and interactive environment to express themselves:the graphics are no longer based on a single structured representation,like a poster or the page in a book or magazine.
Communication designers are asked to work with tools,for example the web,that interface with users and involve a series of levels that transform a traditional sheet of paper into a place that has multiple access points that dynamically lead us down many paths and into the complex communications and information systems typical of website navigation.
Apart from the text,the kinetic composition of images and the use of video sounds modify the traditional methodological concept used by traditional graphic communications.
At present,the most important expressive fields used by communication designers are the complex virtual architectures of websites:environments with several levels,three-dimensional representations and three-dimensional scenarios in which every element of style is affected by the circular processes typical of the web,by the use of techniques,software and tools that allow interaction with the final users of the communication,by a system of superimpressions of transparent layers characteristic of each hierarchical level of the messages and communicative communications.
The communication designer has to come to grips with the fact that distances don't exist on the web,that the images are launched into a universe of different cultures,turning a globalised style and level of communication into a shared piece of property.
Today,surfing the web is the new way of interpreting communications.The designer has to tackle this problem and allow the person who reads his messages to decode the"information to be used"from the"informative contents"of the site.
it is design ＞ The environment around us,made of artificial products—material and immaterial—is the result of the planning and industrial production of objects of countless shapes,technologies and dimensions,and addressed to various uses.
The design,in its varied and multifaceted forms,determines habits and new behaviours within interpersonal relationships,affecting the material outcome of contemporary society:through the innovation of products,their production processes and planning.
Within this context,the concept of design should be considered,not so much as in semantic terms,as within the reality of project-making itself;this way,it acquires a new meaning as a conscious planning activity,as a virtuous feedback,able to formalize objects and/or services,new products for old and new needs.
Therefore,we do not only refer to the kind of design that's recognizable within the context of a more aware and rather elitist part of contemporary society,but to a design that refers to normal and daily aspects of living:a design intended as a planning activity applied to convenience goods or to developing enterprise sectors,to the complex scenario of planning requirements within advanced industrial societies.
This is the design of new products,conceived in such a way that,at the end of their life-cycle,their existence/use can be extended under other forms.
It's the design of new products that are programmed as systems of interchangeable elements whose application and assembly permit the realization of numerous and different models.
It's the design of new products to whose basic functions additional performances can be added,thus increasing the global complexity of the product itself.
It's the design that marketing strategies use,as Philip Kotler writes in Marketing management
"…marketing is the business function that identifies current unfileed needs and wants,defines and measures their magnitude,determines which target markets the orhanization can best serve,and decides on appropiate products,services,and programs to serve these markets.Thus marketing serves as the link between a society's needs and its pattern of industrial response …"
It's the design that becomes a resource that's able to turn social observation data into a synthetic representation and that,through creativity,suggests something not yet existing to satisfy new needs.
The designer becomes a complex figure whose skills affect a scenario that's characterized by professions as well as production and commercial organisations strongly depending on machines,information and automation,technologies in continuous evolution that require constant updating.
The new concept of design,traditionally only recognized in its role of shaping products,refers now to the complexity of industrial planning as a whole.
Education and training become therefore a permanent condition,which requires a learning method able to transfer advanced know-how but also the ability to understand the complex relations between demand,offer and ability to respond;the knowledge and understanding of skills and methods to manage complexity;the competences to analyse the demand and to know now to translate it into a suggestion of innovative objects.
the language of the object ＞ In essence,the industrial product's belonging to the ethics and the culture of globalisation begins right from its beginning.
The project sublimates the concept proposed,fixed in the drawings,simulations,models,forms and uses of the object;it contains the system of relations between it and its end-user,determines the points where the object is sensitive to the touch,sight and hearing of those who will possess it and will be able even to smell and taste it;it combines a complex system of components,mechanical parts and electronic circuits into a simple product,establishing even its production means and timeframe.
There is no doubt that it is the project that defines the object's language,and style,and thus its added value:contemporary languages that seem fragments of a system in continual search for a new identity;notions and forms like splinters unable to embed themselves in established structures,to transgress in order to assert that desire for hegemony typical of the avant-garde;styles that express that condition of cultural acceptance based only on the continuing search for combinations of exotic and appealing references inherent to what we could call a Global Style,a diffuse language that is shaping the scenario of our daily lives,and taking the entire planet as its spatial reference.
The production system is that which has more obviously revolutionised the operative procedures and logic itself of the methods of traditional work.It is certainly the phase in which technological innovation has had the most impact and,therefore,it is the phase upon which ethical,social and economic implications weigh in a more significant as well as complex and contradictory way.
An object is die-cast in one place and its assembly or warehousing do not even take place on the same site.It has already been estimated for ten years now that of the price of an automobile sold by General Motors 40% is spent in Taiwan of China,Singapore and Japan for small parts，30% ends up in South Korea for assembly and finishing，17.50% in Japan for high tech components，0.75% in Germany for the design of mechanical parts，0.25% in England for advertising and marketing and 0.5% in Ireland and Barbados for computer processing.
Today,with the introduction and diffusion of remote controlled computerised production plants and robotics,which practically exclude margins of error,perfection to the millimetre has been achieved even in the production of much less complex objects,and production processes are more and more separated;on the other hand,margins for product improvement are enormous with the possibility of assembling components selected from the specialised production of homogeneous sectors.
If,on the one hand,this spreads work and wealth,on the other it slows the integration between excellent decision-making skills and the technical skills operating peripherally,and accentuates inequalities.Economist and philosopher Amartya Sen,in his book Globalization and Freedom,observes that inequalities are the principal source of doubt about the planet's economic order.He points out that,even though our world is richer now than it has ever been before,it is one full of tremendous privation and disturbing inequalities.
prospective scenarios ＞ We are seeing daily,with our eyes and with prostheses such as eye-glasses and contact lenses,thousands of produced images:those in the newspapers,from the windows of our homes,from our moving cars,on the luminous liquid crystal or plasma screens of our monitors.
Our olfactory sense is stimulated silicon and glues,by the new odour of plastics,by the dry air of airconditioners,and a thousand particles modify the scents of the seasons recalling the aromas of distant continents.
These objects and contexts meet in an intermingling of form,image and language that concerns the processes of their production,the relationship between the objects and defined contexts such as the city,the metropolis,and the man-made and natural territory,and,finally,our bodies,minds and sense apparatus.In this scenario the design and production of objects,and the control of their life-cycle up to the point of their obsolescence,represent moments of synthesis and complex decision-making that see the investment of a multitude of technical competences,new forms of artistic expression,new trades and new social and ethical content.
Analysis of the industrial product,therefore,allows for a greater comprehension of our times by reflecting on the relationship that the object establishes with a market free of territorial or traditional barriers,and with the confirmation of the material practices of the so-called global village.
It also allows us to look more deeply at how the industrial designer's task has been complicated in its concern,no longer solely with the product's aesthetic appeal,but also with more articulated and specialised issues as well:product design,component design,fashion design,lighting design,management design,strategic design(the design of innovations in process and product)ecodesign(the control of the product's eco-efficiency)，the design and planning of cultural events,museum design,the design of products and product systems for special areas such as historic city centres or archaeological areas;the design of multimedia and interactive visual communications,with appropriate languages,tools and the necessary and possible technologies that go into graphics for publishing,packaging and for co-ordinated,animated and synthetic images and the interfacing of computerised networks.
The designer works in sectors where technology is utilised at its highest levels,in sectors whose production strategies look to the future,creating technical objects,objects for use and objects that do not exist at all,anticipating new and unimaginable performance possibilities,new materials and unimaginable applications of them,for a market that unites the demands of the men and women of the advanced industrial society with the demands of the men and women of developing societies.
Conceiving consumer goods
new technologies
from Il design è ubiquo|Lectures 12013
colour
from Il colore racconta tutto il design,DIID 53|2012
teaching methodology
from Design fra identità e diversità，DIID 42—43|2009
environmentally sustainable technologies
from Ecodesign e nuovi scenari,DIID 41|2009
connections
from Dipendenze tecnologiche,DIID 39|2009
ambiguity of meaning
from Materiali e natura,DIID 38|2008
training experience
from Designer After School,DIID 32|2007
market demand
from Design off Limits,DIID 26|2006
spectacularization
from La spettacolarizzazione del design,DIID 18|2006
communication
from Frontiere della grafica e della comunicazione visiva e multimediale,DIID 16|2005
deception
from Contaminazione,trasferimento,omologazione,DIID 14|2005
thinking materials
from Sincerità e ambiguità dei materiali,DIID 13|2005
magnetic cards
from Design is everywhere,DIID 7|2003
useful obsolescence
from Trasferimenti di senso,DIID 5|2003
playful appearances
from Tool Toy,DIID 1|2002
It often happens that elementary things escape us.This is something we all know:concentrated on a phenomenon as a whole,we often distance ourselves from its details.In this sense,the risk the design system runs lies in the fact that in showing oneself to be free and inclusive as is required of the knowledge of diffuse design,it underestimates its natural mandate in the name of too many assessments—ante-，post-，meta- and trans—that precede the design choices.Its final task,after all the premises and articulations that accompany its phenomenology,is to design artefacts and to do so in connection with its social mandate:interpreting man's need to represent his material culture.
new technologies ＞ The axiom"Less is More"then takes on new meanings in comparison with its origin:it becomes the search for new equilibria between artifice and nature,through a lesser utilization of matter and energy,and more attention to the conception of eco-friendly artefacts;it becomes the ability to control the most miniscule tolerances in the working processes,and stimulus to subtract figurative elements that are redundant and invasive on the formal level;it becomes the impulse to design and make sophisticated technical objects,small and intangible,rendered intelligent in their functions by the technologies of microprocessors,and quick in their interaction with people,who can use them with simple,ergonomic gestures,and without requiring in-depth knowledge;lastly,it becomes a research opportunity for physically reducing things for future scenarios,through the application of nanotechnologies,which is to say a form of extreme shrinkage.Technological innovation impacts the evolutionary dynamics of technical objects:until today,these objects have been,and still are,material products that,like extensions of the body,carry out—in a refined and effective way—specific functions already included in man's sensory apparatus,or expressed by his relationships with natural needs,or by his relationships with nature,or by his system of social relations,or by his behaviour in all the activities he is involved in.
New technologies act upon biological processes,forming genetically modified organisms,which is to say making it possible to extend the concept of artificial and industrial product to food products:tomatoes,courgettes,and other foods,once the result of a natural development cycle,take on colours and sizes designed to respond to a market demand in the most satisfying way possible.New technologies make artificial products smart,so they can interact and dialogue with man,interpret his moods,listen to him from afar,urge his well-being,or form bonds between one person and another.New technologies make it possible not only to extend artificial organs outside our body,but to directly integrate new functions into our own bodies,like seeing in the dark,speaking or hearing underwater or from afar,or seeing beyond real dimensions.A condition is once again advanced:of man and his relationship with science,and the unexpected technological applications that are certainly not entirely unknown;however,never more than today,the potentials of technological innovation encourage us to overcome every imagined limit.
colour ＞ The use of colour in industrial products.The breadth of the topic,the many variations on the theme,and the wealth of literature about the associated phenomena are truly staggering.Paradoxically,such vast quantities of information do not always work in the favour of researchers and scholars.In order to overcome this stumbling block,the decision was made to put together some reflections on the unconventional aspects of colour in the design of tangible and intangible products,in both the present and the past.I hold three of them to be particularly noteworthy and of great personal interest.The first aspect confirms that colour is an essential part of the experience of the designer.As Henri Matisse said,rather than drawing,it is colour that offers liberation.In other words,all of the possible chromatic changes unleash a broad spectrum of sensations.Therefore,when we reproduce coloured signs and decoration,we are doing more than embellishing things with a range of hues as one would with a colourful seasonal garment.We are working with dynamic properties that continually drive relationships between places,objects and people.These ties can be measured in orders of synaesthetic magnitude and they affect sensory interaction,establishing connections between the invisible and the visible.This same junction point is also the source of the complex selection of metaphorical and linguistic devices that express colour.
The mechanisms in question have been generated over time in accordance with different cultural grammar systems.Sottsass maintained that colours were words.Given his history,we might imagine that they served to write visual documents that were as ancient as they were modern,meaning that they were capable of dialogue with everyone."Visual writing"is also a key topic in the experience of Alessandro Mendini.As it is on the surface,it makes the surfaces themselves descriptive,communicative,and therefore sensitive.The second factor seems obvious,but nonetheless it is necessary to dwell upon it:colour is a design and one designs with colour.It is a tool and a means of producing the complex rhetoric of visual"things"，which includes tones,symbols and abstractions which can be seen in the surfaces and volumes of the products around us.Back in the time of the Bauhaus,colour had already been promoted to the status of a new design category thanks to sophisticated contrasts between primary colours which—together with the geometry of forms—served to balance functions.However,one of colour's most comprehensive displays has been given in Italian design.Whether it is a question of hyperbole or chromatic prohibitionism,natural or artificial colour,history has shown us that for those responsible for the relevant choices,the colour of objects is a fundamental issue and never a secondary one.All of this is even more apparent in the modern world,as ranges of colours can be developed thanks to pigment chemistry and the reproduction capabilities of digital techniques.
teaching methodology ＞ Bauhaus attributes to Design the task of directing industrial production towards diffusing objects of formal and functional quality that can contribute to the aesthetic and moral education of the general public.A didactic method based on experimentation was adopted to train Designers from a technical and artistic viewpoint,teaching them to work in teams comprising the many skills needed to provide technical solutions to complex functional and technological problems for the production of industrial artefacts,but also to establish transversal relations between Visual Arts,Design and Architecture to formally define products.
It's no accident that many masters of modern architecture have received training in Design;it's no accident that there have been many stylistic analogies between Architecture and Design;and it's no accident that in Europe many Design Schools are still integrated with Schools of Architecture or with Visual arts schools,or both.
And Design Schools which belong to Polytechnics or Engineering Schools are rooted in that same experience,even though they have focused primarily on organizing industrial production in terms of technical innovation and the services provided by artefacts.
The great masters of this experience,or those related to it,are Marcel Breuer,Eilleen Gray,René Hernst,Mies Van Der Rohe,Jean Prouvé，Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius,who also built the identifying traits of the French School and of that of Middle Europe,and who also influenced the identity of Design expressed by other regions outside European borders where Bauhaus teachers and former students worked with extraordinary determination,never losing sight of that social commitment that was the ideological foundation of Bauhaus and of the MM.
Starting in the 1950s,the Ulm School helped to enrich the content of Design,including theories of communication and information in Design studies,and the management and control of the immediate use of the object in its operative field,linking it to its processes of obsolescence.
environmentally sustainable technologies ＞ However,we are already aware of the content of the numerous experiments in which designers and companies attempt to propose sustainable products whose forms and functions optimize use and operating times,while the materials utilized and production processes allow moderate consumption of natural resources.
The field of experimentation is undeniably full of ideas that are definitely more evolved than those a few decades ago in that there is a greater focus on their appearance,but despite this they are unable to move away from formal and typological residential models bound to a concept of urban and domestic space that is now antiquated.Indeed,it seems that designers still consider technologies for sustainable living spaces to be invasive devices in buildings,as in spite of everything they stick to traditional views of space and its formal structures.
The field of eco-sustainability simply has to face up to new technologies,both the tangible ones and the intangible digital ones that I believe are bringing about a genuine cultural revolution.It must therefore push for a new approach to design and create a fresh concept of living.To give an example,even the architect Mario Cucinella—who is perhaps one of the most interesting sustainability players on the European scene and has gone so far as to conceive a house which is not a"machine"that consumes energy but rather one that produces it—does not seem to give his bold idea an architectural shape that reworks its typological and aesthetic paradigms.
This approach is widespread and concerns more or less all of the design world,including that of industrial products.There are intelligent monitors whose brightness is reduced when sensors detect that the user has moved away,extractor fans that direct dirt to a device where it is compressed to reduce the space it occupies,mobile telephones that are made of recycled materials and have energy saving functions,refrigerators with special panels to make their insulation as much as 20 times more efficient and the emissions of cars will soon be reduced to zero.There is a wealth of extraordinary technological innovation that is nonetheless impossible to perceive in the forms or interaction with the user.No concrete shape has been given to the new vision of the world that the system of sustainable products should really be supporting.It seems that even though we are dealing with factors of technological innovation arising due to the need to save energy or design alternative forms with digital support,we are not fully aware that we are moving towards a new conception of the world and a new relationship with space and time.Yet the designers who are handling the new technologies find themselves in the same situation as their predecessors at the end of the industrial revolution,such as those involved in Bauhaus,who tried to give some meaning to the shapes of the technology of the time,as part of a new aesthetic revolution.
connections ＞ Today,it is possible to design environments in which man can be immersed in the future"Touch Radio"(Radio Tattile,whose prototype was created by a team of designers of the Interaction Design Institute of Ivrea).Tune is a"Touch Radio"which you enter to explore emotions,visual experiences,space morphing,accompanied by the listening to sounds and music and where lights features show images changing upon the choice of the different channels.At the Ulster University a prototype of IMP(Individual Memory Projector)，a kind of memory box of our memories,was developed.It is shaped as a sphere that opens by rotating it and turns into a small compact projector interacting with man bringing him back to his memories,which are projected on any wall as family movies and photos in association with sounds and smells of the environment recalled.
Researchers at the Carnegie Mellow University of Pittsburgh created a prototype of The Hug,the"love cushion"that makes the person you phone feel sensorially closer.The filled cushion is actually a robot with rounded shapes suggesting a head and two feet,which is equipped with software to recognize voice and other signals.During phone conversation,it features your answers and speaking into the microphone,and reproduces human interaction through lights and warmth(radiated thanks to special thermal fibres)and through the vibration pattern generated in association with the sensory data sent by the other Hug.
Through electro luminescence,OLED(Organic Light-Emitting Diode)technology allows users to have flexible,ultra-thin,ultra-light and fullcolour displays provided with an extraordinary level of brightness and contrast,which can be used as PCs,TVs,mobile phones to be rolled up after use.Interaction Design is a potential field of application that imbues with technologies the products and the systems of artificial products surrounding us.Though they are hidden,technologies are now a constant presence in our daily life and influence our behaviour,propose new dreams,stimulate our senses and our entire perceptive system towards new forms,open us to new experiences without any cultural mediation,spur us to interact with the artificial world to change it and to change our emotions or to fulfil our needs.
Interaction Design,as it plans new ways of interaction between man and artefacts to facilitate their use in relation to software technologies,thus requiring a complex system of different expertises:software and hardware technologies and engineering,the languages of the particular forms of communication,design culture and culture of the industrial manufacturing of artefacts,sociology,ergonomics,psychology.
The aim is to make the use of the artefact as accessible as possible and to turn it into a social and cultural enrichment factor for man.
The products of Interaction Design cannot be separated from technology and they can only face both the immaterial and virtuality as well as universal iconic languages.With man being the target of its products.
The use of increasingly developing technologies necessarily bound to the products of Interaction Design makes us think over the implications of such a strict dependency.
What is said above is even truer when considering that the products we are talking about are mainly immaterial:they come to life and gain a reason of meaning thanks to the action of man who interacts with them.It is man's action,and in some cases his only presence,to reveal their functions and uses and it is again man's action that may even determine their form,possible figurations,sound,scent,etc.However,man only apparently plays an active role as the object contains software programming and managing any of the possible configurations of the artefact.
ambiguity of meaning ＞ Over time,we have begun using new materials to express their truer identity that they have won back.It is no longer true that wood expresses refinement and plastic vulgarity.Rather,the language of wood reflects the straightforward representation of the work of humans and of craftsmen with their tools that cut,plane,smooth and polish;and the language of plastic the hermetic and ambiguous representation of the transformation of chemicals and of its magic in which humans in their ingenuity invent processes that generate materials and allow these processes to express themselves even after the object has been produced,when the material is modified through its interactions with humans,time and the environment.Over the years,this type of"ambiguity of the surface"has been opposed to a sort of"ambiguity of meaning".Here,designers also use new materials to amaze us and to express non-explicit—rather,vague and changing—languages,in order to fool the senses and play on our comprehension of their physical consistency.They try to create new relationships between what is artificial and what is natural,between useful objects,technical objects,intelligent objects,people and the environment.And they sometimes oppose the straightforwardness of the languages of traditional materials with the misleading vocations of new materials which are constantly being made lighter,changeable,transparent,technical,luminous,reflective,cold,chameleon-like,and deceiving.Today,however,when we look to Nature,we seek to imitate not only its aesthetic aspects,but its more intrinsic characteristics,successfully designing the sensory imprint of the material and of the product,and also seeking to make it bio-inspired,bio-mimetic and even alive.So,we focus more on the material's natural character and on its intimate essence,rather than on its superficial appearance.
training experience ＞ What is demonstrated is a capacity to measure itself against the complexity and richness of the system described above,but it seems that it remains a bit on the sidelines to quite measure up to those areas where tradition prevails and where products presuppose contents performance and advanced techniques.Or to push for experimentation in"style"with an attention to the manner of language without ever hardly being able to open up new horizons.
It is a scenario which calls upon the schools to measure themselves more effectively against the new frontiers of science and technique to translate them into new technologies for new products that improve the quality of life of the people they are intended for.
It is a scenario where young designers in only a few points of excellence express the ability to look at the complex network of factors in innovation:those who have the ability to analyse the phenomena of and around design beyond that too glossy and worn-out concept,to extend the concept of design beyond the traditional notion.
For young people,the school must provide more tools for a training experience that allows them complex overviews,as is required in the design of industrial artefacts which express the highest levels of technological innovation,which set strategies for production for the future,which develop technical objects,foreshadow new and unimaginable uses,new materials,the application of these in a market that unifies the demand men and women in the advanced industrial societies to the demand of men and women in the developing world.
market demand ＞ New technologies affect biological processes creating genetically modified organisms.In other words,we can use them to extend the concept of an artificial and industrial product to foodstuffs:tomatoes,courgettes and other foods,once the result of a natural cycle of growth,have colours and sizes that are designed to satisfy market demand.
New technologies make artificial products"intelligent"so that they can interact and dialogue with us,understand our moods,listen to us from a distance,make us feel better or mediate between two people.
New technologies not only allow us to maintain artificial organs outside our body,but to directly integrate new functions into our body,such as seeing in the dark,speaking and listening underwater or at a distance and seeing beyond reality.
spectacularization ＞ Designers are no longer asked to design only functional products,but above all to design attractive objects that the consumer can't resist buying,objects that have contents and meanings that are symbolic rather than real or that emphasise a dematerialisation of the products that become communication,a complex style with its own rules,its own grammar and a syntax that doesn't only focus on satisfying needs.If,on the one hand,ideas appear to have no material bonds,becoming once again free thought and pure signs,on the other,the social role of the designer appears to inevitably dissolve into a world of lights and sequins.It's short step from the spectacularisation of the product—or even of just the project and the idea—to the spectacularisation of the designer and—in a completely consequential cause and effect relationship—the latter seems to adjust to this logic.
Real icons of the star system,famous protagonists,but also skilful managers of their own media power,designers are always clever strategists when they have to communicate the product and their own image.The designer is"media，"he is the attraction to touch,see and listen to:stars among the stars and masters in this field,Philippe Starck—whose face is also a brand.
communication ＞ They also train students to be a designer capable of using all available communication tools that range from paper to monitors,from the analogical to the digital,exploiting a tradition which,on the basis of one of the oldest forms of visible representation of images and words,saw the beginning of printing in the mid 15th century and the advent of internet in the 21st century.
We should take a moment to talk about the rather tricky issue of the relationship that visual and multimedia communications and its specific field of elaboration,experimentation and scientific research has established in recent years with industrial design and its own specific field of elaboration,experimentation and scientific research,in a common disciplinary framework of reference on the question of design.
In other words,according to the declarations of those working in its own field of reference,the scientific and disciplinary contents of this"area"：involve the theories and methods,techniques and tools of the design of industrial products—material or virtual—that apply to its productive,technological,constructive,functional and formal traits and to the relationship that it establishes with the spatial and environmental context and with the world of industry and the market.The nature of this product(ranging from assets and capital goods to long-lasting consumer goods,from communicative,relational,interactive artefacts to relational and service structures)and its complexity(from materials and semi finished products to intermediate goods,components,final products and integrated systems of products,communications and services)involve just as many design methods and techniques as an interdisciplinary procedure which,interacting with the various goods sectors and fields of production,give rise to specific research fields in continuous flux…"In essence,they involve knowledge and skills in related fields,transversality,knowledge that is specific to theoretical speculation,complete with the techniques and tools used in design projects and experimentation.
So if it's true that visual and multimedia communication theories and practices are useful and should be carried out or gradually be integrated into the theories and practice of the design of everyday objects as well as being tested against a design culture which is both the ‘joint’and compulsory common reference,it's also true that the specifics of each field is indisputable.
That's why I believe that if it's appropriate,even necessary,for these two kinds of training to be part of the field of industrial design,it is also necessary to emphasise that experimentation and scientific research of both fields should be kept within specific boundaries:limited boundaries,with common borders,but with their own specific disciplinary statutes.
deception ＞ Even if the product is industrial,it is designed for short-term serial production,market segments in which the formal contents of the object and its aesthetics are in a state of constant flux,while the functional parts remain the same.
This has produced a relationship of transferral with architecture:in fact,architecture now rapidly benefits from the contents of a research developed to produce industrial artefacts.
By using the technologies experimented in a technical object,architecture is increasingly becoming a"machine"as complex as an industrial product.
In fact,while buildings are gradually dematerialising they are also full of all the electrical and mechanical parts that improve their performance.
They have communicative and symbolic values which,like an industrial product,become added values:however,the latter actually shorten the lifecycle of the architecture and exponentially accelerate the obsolescence of the building itself.
The widespread use and development of the much improved,almost perfect frame structure has led to the separation between the casing and the load-bearing structure,creating a sort of skin around the skeleton of the construction.
Apart from the injection of technologies,building methods,performance and symbolism into these"metropolitan monsters，"all the traits of an industrial products,simulacra of technical artefacts,have been shifted onto a larger scale.Even the relationship with the site—that has always been one of the cornerstones of architecture—is much less important.
Neither the shape nor the materials used have an organic relationship with an object's ultimate function.Ambiguity and deception are endemic in the design of objects and architectures:their ultimate use is secreted and advertising highlights this ambiguity.
Objects and buildings become more and more complicated because of their communicative nature:buildings and the city assume ambiguous,indefinite shapes turning into ephemeral places of communication and advertisement.The more highly innovative the technologies,the more artefacts and architectures become ephemeral.
thinking materials ＞ Our relationship with the materials in the things that surround us provokes an emotional bond with our historical memory:something a designer sublimes when designing a product.After all,materials are the"literal components"of all artefacts,because materials make them real.They are the ingredients that man has used or uses to make products.
Over time,materials have been worked by first by artisans and then by machines to shape and change them,continually adapting them to the producer's needs,but materials have also shaped and changed artisans and production techniques.
Materials are used in art and are the premise of the arts;their power lies in being able to conjure up a whole culture with their immediacy.Materials such as stone,clay and wood that were chosen as tools to build objects.They were used not just because they were available,but because of their characteristics,their static strength,durability,workability and also because they could be combined with other materials,bent and turned into beautiful objects.
Jean Nouvel's design of the Tour de la Défense in Paris is the emblematic theorem that intelligently represents—with an amazing flair for synthesis—the double language of the ambiguity and honesty of the materials used.The perfectly cylindrical Tower rises up in all its"sincerity"out of the bowels of the earth with the natural irregularity of a block of rough,black granite.It soars skywards,and beyond the tenth floor the granite appears to be smooth;its shiny surface reflects the light and colours of the sky in a hazardous"vagueness."When further up it dissolves into black glass,the deception is complete:granite and glass have become a mixture that makes them dematerialise.Even further up,they appear even more inconsistent when the serigraphed,opaque glass makes everything more evanescent.Then finally,up among the clouds,the glass reappears in all its"sincere，"transparent,material consistency,blending with the sky.
New materials provide remarkable opportunities in experimentation in all fields of art.
magnetic cards ＞ It's the design of items which combine immaterial relationships through material products:like the smart card,an object that—minimal in its shape,maximum in its content-connects us to several links and transforms us in a computational algorithm.
An intelligent card made of plastic,on which the Japanese Kunitaka Arimur inserted micro processors that were able to elaborate and hold data.
These cards,like real electronic security boxes,aren't only used as credit cards,but also as phone cards,as keys for security doors,as cards containing personal data,as access cards to digital TV programs.
The smart card represents one of the most important factors of transformation of our behaviours.
It's interesting to see how much value magnetic cards have gained in each of their uses—as phone cards,badges,credit cards—within contemporary people's"kit of tools"：a rigid piece of paper,a"card"indeed,with specific dimensions more likely required by their interaction with machines than with people,that however inevitably influence their set of accessories(i.e.wallets,cases,pockets).
Also interesting is the interaction magnetic cards create between service providers and users.
Think,for example,of supermarkets and petrol-stations costumer cards to collect points at each purchase;or identification cards(i.e.in Prada stores)which collect information about each customer in order to customize their offer as much as possible.The smart card even becomes a tool to be used for business strategies,also related to each single product.
It's about the design of new products for which the accurate choice of materials and technologies is fundamental,because their characteristics have to respond to sensorial needs,like contact,pleasure and comfort,more than image itself.It's the case of Technogel,a biomedical material,used by Philippe Starck and Gaetano Pesce,to create specific objects whose main characteristics are tenderness,softness and protection.Such products satisfy the need for entertainment,pleasure,emotions,that is the sense of wellbeing defined by marketing experts like Faith Popcom as"cocooning".
We talk about a design that avails of methods that,with the use new informatics instruments,can now interact with production processes in tighter connection,to the point of inducing real transformations in planning logics and practice.
useful obsolescence ＞ Another way to manage the life cycle of an artefact is to slow down its decline by changing and upgrading its technical components,in order to make the performance compatible with developing technology;cannibalizing,that is to select or take two or more obsolete products from still working parts in order to make an efficient one;replacing with a new and upgraded product and management of dismissal carried out by the providing company.
Nonetheless,a product may be reused for different performances according to tradition when its functions become obsolete.How many times have you seen food cans used as flower pots in gardens and an old shoe as a vase? How many times have you seen newspapers used to wrap food or make caps?
Materials and objects are often reused by people with no or little resources.For example,toys made by children in the streets with dismissed materials:skateboards built with old wood panels,coaches made of cans and wire,bicycle wheels turned into hula hoops and plastic bags that become kites.
An artefact whose functions have become obsolete can express itself in a new dimension,more as a superstructure then a structure.Its nonsense creates new scenarios,justifies the new aesthetic contents and makes it almost poetical.
For example,former drive-in cinema screens became huge pictures standing out against the landscape:on the dirty surface of the screen the old structure designs a Cartesian plane,and the sky pops up through the ripping of the screen.Apparently,they have always been there.
Abandoned gas stations,isolated steel warehouses,silos and tankers in the middle of the country appear like huge works of art built in the sky,evocating functions and traditions from the past,which sublimate them as archaeological sites.Like sculptures in an artificial world,turned into natural elements as a part of the landscape,we are inspired by old and abandoned rusted freight cars,whose old structure reminds us of the long trips and the faded away posters of the companies and products transported.
Yet,artefacts are not always abandoned when their functions become obsolete.The added value of the product is often acknowledged in its aesthetic content and representative value.
playful appearances ＞ We have analysed the tendency to design and produce objects of daily use as if they were toys.
Objects which,with a sense of irony,conceal their true use and function behind a playful image-the object as ToolToy.
This is a stylistic trend arising from an acknowledgement of the communicative content of an object with added value.
The attribution of value to the object,in fact,is no longer an expression of the balanced relationship between its aesthetic content and its performance,but lies rather in its formal expression.
Industrial products of recent years have gradually dematerialised through the use of extremely innovative technologies and functions,and have become the accumulation also of the most advanced image research,achieving a level of performance that is neither useful nor practical,but really quite superfluous with respect to primary needs.There are so many objects that could serve as examples of this,but a particularly effective one is the watch.
With the application of the principles of the spring mechanism or the pendulum,the goal of absolute precision had been accomplished,and precision was precisely the parameter that guided one in choosing a watch—little did it matter if it had been designed by an unknown and was of scarce formal value.
Then,with the help of electronics and the diffusion of printed circuit boards—tiny components upon which the entire functional process of an electronic apparatus was industrially printed—a watch's precision became impeccable.Something else had to come in to give the object its added value:its image value,its design,its symbolic meaning.
Things,objects and products
complex paths
from Il design è ubiquo|Lectures 12013
without interruption
from Naturalezza industriale,DIID 55 |2012
urging ingenuity
from Il giocattolo come oggetto del desiderio,DIID 54|2012
architectural object
from Off scale and contemporary landscape,DIID 31|2007
strategic value
from Design for health,DIID 27|2007
at the service of sport
from Performance &Design,DIID 20|2006
anonymous but industrial
from Mass design o il potere dell'oggetto anonimo,DIID 15|2005
between objects and contexts
from Contaminazione,trasferimento,omologazione,DIID 14|2005
sincerity and ambiguity
from Sincerità e ambiguità dei materiali,DIID 13|2005
technological innovation
from High technology,DIID 9|2004
hybrid products
from Ethnic &technical,DIID 6|2003
design museums
from Trasferimenti di senso,DIID 5|2003
upgrading
from Global design,DIID 3—4|2003
With absolute simplicity,when we recount the artificial world,we represent it inhabited by things,objects,or products,indifferently:terms often used with equivalent meanings,as synonyms to describe what surrounds us.But they do not entirely overlap—they do not in the literary language,and they do not in the language of design.Despite this,they represent a scale of values in the design's dynamic and authorial dimension,and in the passage—also rhetorical—from the randomness of events that gives life to our material goods,to their voluntary determination.This is a deduction that establishes the nature of industrial design,which is to say transforming things into products,fully aware that objects are the category of everything.
complex paths ＞ In the handicraft process,unique products become available,even when they present the same typological and morphological characteristics.A piece in a homogeneous series is thus differentiated from the other by a sort of controlled defect,by a greater pressure of the hands on the material,by a deeper cut by a tool,by a different composition of the colour that is used,by the greater or lesser skill or experience of the person that has made it,or by their absolute freedom to introduce new formal or functional intuitions in relation to the mood of the moment.Artefacts of industrial processes,on the other hand,have no defects;the components allowing them to work are electronic circuits,microchips that,with their impulses,can bring life to the objects themselves.This means that the products we use can be the result of activities highly different from one another.On the one hand,there are processes that cannot be separated from the creativity of the individual man in specific settings,from his technical ability,from his manual skill,and from his expertise in using tools,traditional or evolved as they may be;on the other hand,there is the result of processes characterized by complex paths whose phases are entrusted only in part to man,since it is in the technological potential of the machine that their perfection and their performance capacity is expressed.In this last case,these are artefacts produced by highly refined systems,articulated into segments that can be deployed in territories far from the place of conception and design,thanks to remote-controlled machines entrusted with the fabrication phase;the place where the quality checks are scheduled and performed may also differ.But above all,these are processes that precisely through the use of these machines make mass production compatible with introducing the customization of objects.
without interruption ＞ The"Great Atlas of Design"，which was published a few years ago,begins with the following words:From our first action in the morning,when we reach out our hands to turn off our alarms,to the evening when we press the switches near our beds to turn off the lights from our lamps or the pictures from our televisions,we spend our lives immersed in a world of objects.These objects support,house and clothe us.They help us and they also frequently hinder us.This wealth of things has become so well established that it seems natural.Although we are very interested in items of all kinds and spend a great deal of time choosing and rearranging them,we seldom stop to think about the nature of things and the fact that until relatively recently objects were rare,precious and difficult to obtain and preserve.For a very long time,only a privileged few had access to material goods:kings,priests,generals and rich merchants.Everyone else simply had the tools that they needed in order to work and a few other essentials.
These borrowed words tell a story about design phenomena that is very familiar to us,with its realistic portrayal of a dwelling that is entirely occupied by the objects that have been continually produced throughout the history of design.
Faced with this ceaseless flow of products that is fuelled by its own consumption,we yield to the cyclical,conventional temptation to take a close look at timeless objects which resist planned obsolescence,are not confined to the words of a caption,tend to be named after their functions and are made of truly unambiguous materials.We are in the field of anonymous design,which has already been explored elsewhere.We would prefer to call it by a different name now,but our hands are tied because a sufficiently evocative alternative solution has yet to be proposed in the critical and narrative spheres.An attempt was made recently by the Vitra Design Museum with an exhibition entitled"Hidden Heroes:The Genius of Everyday Things"，which was on display at the Science Museum in London until June 2012.The heroism of this collection of objects can be seen in the continual vein of spontaneous and social creativity that has always catered to human needs and discreetly pairs pure intelligence with genuine design of the kind that we highlight.
urging ingenuity ＞ Toys are the objects of desire of children.Like any other part of the material culture,they reflect the social and economic backdrops against which they have gradually developed.
Toys are used to imitate the everyday behaviour of adults.Small-scale reproductions are made of objects and groups of items that represent the stereotypes of trades and women's and men's activities inside and outside the home.There are miniature versions of houses and all of the things that take place in the kitchen,the bedroom and the living room.There are miniature recreations of types of work and locations,such as farms,schools,hospitals,fire stations,railway stations and space centres.
Toys can play didactic roles or encourage practical skills,with building games such as Meccano,Lego and Playmobil.Mental agility can be promoted by jigsaw puzzles.
The creativity of children can be developed by various kinds of toys,including those featuring characters from weird and wonderful tales,comics and cartoons.
Devices in children's toys can make them active,as is the case with clockwork,manually rechargeable and battery-powered mechanical items,electrical products and objects that utilize electronics and computer technology to interact with users.
A look back at the historical evolution of toys gives an overview of the anthropological,cultural and social system that helped to shape them and the production system which has moved from craftsmanship to industrial manufacturing and seen natural materials being replaced by artificial ones.Manufacturing companies have built up around toys and established themselves as genuine brands with their own distinctive approaches to play and physical qualities.Their output fits the description of industrial products in every way.Specialist professional figures come up with a concept which is then elaborated by designers.The items are manufactured in industrial processes before finally becoming the focus of marketing campaigns that make them accessible all over the world.
The big names include companies like Fisher Price,which established itself on a global scale in the 1970s and 1980s with the help of designers such as Edward Savage.Walt Disney Pictures made its first products back in the late 1930s.Today,Pixar Animation Studios has followed its lead,while American Girls is a prestigious maker of dolls that are in huge demand among American girls and adolescents.
Design is playing an increasingly important role in the world of toys,as demonstrated by the Kaleidoscope House and all of its parts,which were produced in 2001 by Bozart Toys and conceived by Laurie Simmons and Peter Wheelwright as a dwelling for the new millennium.
The house has coloured,transparent walls.It is designed to offer children a new approach to play and most importantly to introduce artistic products into their lives from an early age.
The furnishings were created by renowned contemporary designers:Jasper Morrison and Ron Arad were behind the items in the living room;Karim Rashid designed the dining room table;and the beds are by Laurie Simmons.The artworks are by Barbara Kruger,Cindy Sherman,Peter Hailey and Allan McCollum.The fashionably dressed parents and children of the Blue—Green family live in the Kaleidoscope House,which is the first part of a collection that could become a city over time.
architectural object ＞ Therefore the"gigantism"of industrial products was strengthened,due to Transfer initially and then to Standardization in the relationships of objects with architectural and urban contexts.Architectural products have imported the forms of technology piloted in technical objects.Their nature increasingly resembles that of a machine with the complexity of an industrial product.
They have progressively dematerialized and at the same time they have displayed communicative and symbolic values that represent their additional value but also reduce their shelf life,in the same way as an industrial product.This means that they become obsolete much more quickly.
strategic value ＞ Greater competition in the global market and the increase in demand from developing countries tend to improve the number of product in absolute terms,the quantity and quality of product types as well as their formal and iconic quality—often decisive in a competitive market .Companies discover that design is an important added value in the product's aesthetics as well as a crucial factor in the innovation of production and products,so much so that design is becoming increasingly vital in the productive system and industrial districts.
at the service of sport ＞ The role of sports design is to interpret and translate the needs of certain activities into products.Since these activities are constantly looking for cutting-edge performances,the products require continuous,highly advanced experimentation.The contribution of these products is to increase the performance of the athletes in the sports in which they are used.
At the same time they have to protect them from all sorts of risks.
While I write,Francesco Totti is playing in the World Cup;he is making a comeback after a serious injury.In order that he could take part in the football tournament,Diadora has designed and produced a special shin-guard to protect his left leg injured four months ago.It is an anatomic and ergonomic shin-guard:three carbon fibre layers covered in titanium shield his fibula while inside it is lined in Kevlar.
This is just one example of how sports design involves a whole range of complex,varied aspects of industrial design,making it possible to personalise a product and adapt it to the user's needs by either focusing on a particular design or colour of its formal characteristics or by modelling it on a person's specific anatomical features.
anonymous but industrial ＞ In short,there are products that we accept as being part of the culture of design:the added value of these products is in their design.They are represented by design because they are"branded."They are recognised as symbols of academic experimentation,objects of desire thanks to their emblematic value compared to specific figurative cultures,high-tech products or new productive processes.Next to these products there are many,widely distributed,industrial products:a countless number of"anonymous"industrial products destined for mass consumption and sold either by big distribution chains or through alternative channels working in parallel to the official ones.
More than their"academic"counterparts,these are the products that become everyday items:they bear witness to how big numbers are the end product of industrial production.They represent the"material culture"of our industrial society,post-industrial society and,little by little,of today's globalised society.
These products are produced based on an atopical concept of what are useful objects:they are indifferent to context which,on the contrary,they themselves tend to determine,becoming,from time to time,the paradigmatic representation of an economy,of specific individual or social behaviour,of the widespread taste of mass culture.
These products allow us to reconstruct the contradictions of the debate on industrial production.They allow us to understand how the relationship between design and mass production has gradually evolved based on economic,political and cultural considerations as well as being directly influenced by social models that they have involved or represented:the rationalistic,functionalist Fordist approach associated with social models that used widespread consumption to support the establishment of a more democratic society;the approach programmed to ensure that mass-produced products wouldn't last,a way to increase the size of our affluent society,but which actually creates an tendency towards continuous consumption;the concept of radical-pop culture that by criticising the power of homologation and conditioning exerted by serial products,stresses the value and independence of the individual;or the more recent trends that have stemmed from reflections on globalisation,on the elimination of the distance that regulates the flow of products in space and time in which differences between culture,traditions,customs and systems of social relationship have been abolished by eliminating space and time in communications and information.
between objects and contexts ＞ The production of the Thonet chairs after the discovery of how to curve wood is a perfect example of the development of techniques and building materials and the deep-rooted renovation of architecture at the end of the 19th century.Crystal Palace is an example of such a development since its prefabricated elements of alloys and glass made its construction possible.
The four examples of chairs and armchairs by Mackintosh belong instead to the artistic revolutions of Art Nouveau,as do the smaller artefacts by Henry van de Velde(crockery,cutlery,etc.)or the handles,columns,everyday or urban objects by Victor Horta who created a continuum by using an uninterrupted line.All the years of Rationalism or abstract-figurative"ism"represents the history of transversality,of contamination between artefacts destined for everyday use in the home or workplace and the architectural and urban context.The De Stijl experience is noticeable in the small blue-red-yellow chairs by Gerrit Ritveld as well as in the Schroeder House in Utrecht or the paintings by Piet Mondrian.The early,wooden chairs by Marcel Breuer have elements of contamination with neoplastic doctrine.The 1925 tubular metal armchairs and chairs by Marcel Breuer and the 1926 and 1929 chairs by Mies exploit the characteristics of these new alloys and determine the figurative shape and geometry of space expressed by Mies in the Pavilion in Barcelona.Le Corbusier's adjustable chaise-longue is emblematic of the master's patient research on flexibility.The use of plywood technology by Alvar Aalto and his research on psychological comfort and reactivity or the research by Eero Sarinen on the chemical treatment of wood and the use of powerful pressure moulding machines to make"organic"shapes are all linked to the basic ideas of the organic movement.So Arne Jacobsen's stackable chairs plasticize wood and create neo-expressionist shapes.
However,the relationship between objects and contexts has gradually changed.Initially,it was a relationship we could call transfer and then it became a relationship we could call homologation.
sincerity and ambiguity ＞ Nowadays,materials are used according to their expressive style,using what we could call symmetrical procedures.In fact,there's a new way of interpreting the communicative contents of a material that is developing alongside the traditional one:undoubtedly,it's an interesting phenomenon to study.In a nutshell we could call it:the"sincerity"and"ambiguity"of materials.
Obviously this approach has benefited from the continuous innovation produced by research on materials.This innovation involves:ultraperforming materials that are more resistant,lightweight,long-lasting and flexible;multidimensional materials that are physically three dimensional and create a substance with completely new characteristics and appearance;repurposed or recombinant materials,recycled,remixed and transformed materials,almost surrogates used in different ways and for different purposes,or just recombined;intelligent,transformational or interfacial materials that interact with the outside world and adapt from time to time or that interact with our senses based on certain assumptions or that are influenced by biological systems,or custom-designed in their DNA at nanometric level thanks to the evolution of the science of materials similar to the one introduced by the digitalisation of information.
Materials have added value as far as performance is concerned,but also a greater ability to interact with sensorial stimuli.This creates new styles that affect man's behaviour,the shape of objects and a different and more complex way to relate to the latter through his senses.
technological innovation ＞ Techne uses tools and procedures to make production easier and better.
The artefact is the product,the prosthesis,that will satisfy some of man's needs,be they functional or not,to improve his way of living in today's environment.
The process that transforms a need into a prosthesis is based on man's inventiveness and creativity.
Man's inventiveness helps to design a product that satisfies his need,defining its performance criteria.With techne,instead,creativity organizes and controls all the materials necessary to achieve the pre-established goal and the work methods and tools needed to produce the product/artefact.
The relationship between techne and artefact is the visible representation of evolution.
In practice,technological innovation affects the evolutionary dynamics of technical objects which up to now have been,and are,material products which,like extensions of the human body,carry out specific functions more elaborately and efficiently.However,these functions are already part of man's sensorial faculties.
Nowadays,technological innovation affects the development of immaterial products as well as technical objects,in other words material products present and visible in the artificial landscape of our everyday lives,our domestic space,workplace or urban space where we move and act.
The actions and processes activated by technological innovation affect our bodies or the biological mutations of animated beings since they directly affect our bodies by producing biological variations capable of introducing into these artificial products procedures that are foreign to our sensorial faculties,giving it new empowerment.
New technologies work on biological processes,creating genetically modified organisms.In other words,they allow the concept of artificial and industrial products to be extended to foodstuffs:once the fruit of a natural growth cycle,the colour and size of tomatoes,courgettes and other foods are designed to fully satisfy market demand.
New technologies make artificial products"intelligent"，making it possible for them to interact and dialogue with man,understand his moods,listen to him from a distance,increase his wellbeing or act as a go-between.
New technologies not only allow artificial organs to project our bodies outwards,but also to directly integrate new functions into our bodies,i.e.to see in the dark,to speak and listen underwater or at a distance,to see beyond reality.For man and his relationship with science and new technological tools this is not new,but never before has the potential of technological innovation pressed us to reach beyond the limits of what is possible.
hybrid products ＞ In practice we are faced with an clear alternative.On the one hand,exclusive products whose semantic value lies in their uniqueness,and this depends on the artisanal nature of their production.They are recognised as being"ethnic"products because they tell the story and illustrate the culture of a race or an ethnic group.On the other,mass-produced objects which aim at some sort of perfection,be it to do with performance or morphology,and where exclusivity depends on the innovative role of technology.We call these objects，"technical"products.But due to the current merger between these two types of production methods,this alternative is almost non-existent and the consumer is faced with a truly hybrid phenomenon that applies to all the artefacts of"mixed"objects,in other words neither"ethnic"nor"technical".Instead,objects are"ethnic/ethnic"only when they actually come from an artisanal tradition，"ethnic/technical"or technical/ethnic'when that tradition is copied by machines whose real potential would produce completely different results and"technical/technical"when the products exploit the full potential of technologically sophisticated production methods.This dynamic is semantically so strong that it seems possible to say that this hybrid phenomenon is the dominant characteristic of the abovementioned global style.
design museums ＞ Turning a technical object into a fetish to be preserved in design museums arouses a reflection.
The mechanical,electromechanical and electronic parts of a technical object represent its soul and make possible the relationship with people through the sound,the image or the movement produced.
Parts are the essence of the object.
When they break down,the object dies.What is the sense of a design museum? Is there any sense in preserving and showing manufactured products and technical objects that have lost their original use,turning them into fetish?
In design museums we may find silent radios,blind cameras,switched off monitors and still typing machines,all arranged in shelves that make us feel as we were visiting a junk dealer instead of a museum,especially when not too much time has passed since the object was still in use.
In my opinion,science and technique museums should have the function to document and record industrial products in their evolution system.I do not see any sense in showing as a fetish Lettera 22 in a design museum among chairs,tables,televisions and so on.I think it is more useful to show how the technical evolution of an artefact,built for the first time in 1753 by Friedrich von Knauss in Vienna,slowly led to the first industrial typing machine built by Remington in 1873，or how the first typing machine with visible letters(Underwood no.11896)led to the first electrical typing machine(Cahill Writing Machine Co.，1901)，and so from the first electronic typing machine to the present generation of intelligent machines.
In my opinion,the formal and aesthetic content of technical objects can be highlighted in museums of contemporary art by including them,from time to time,in specific and thematic exhibitions or studies on specific languages and styles.
upgrading ＞ With globalisation the flow of products and money has become a circular one and the big brands are creating the society's image turning individuals into consumers.Some products are particularly representative of this condition.Coca-Cola,jeans,and the latest generation game consoles,from Nintendo's GameCube to Sony's PlayStation.Coca-Cola,with its material product and immaterial brand—the unmistakable red and white label—has penetrated over 200 countries and has a market as big as the planet itself.As Jean Baudrillard maintains,it is the emblem of the Zero Degree soft-drink;it is a fetish item in a universal,untranslatable advertising language with no definition other than its brand.The product was the emblem of a conscious communication project right from its beginning when the name Coca-Cola was considered fundamental:a brand utterable in the same way in almost every language in the world.More money was invested in its advertising than ever before-in 1908，only 12 years after it was first marketed in 1886 in the Atlanta drugstore of John Stith Pemberton,Coca-Cola was already occupying 2.5 million square metres of advertising space and its logo was in more than 10000 shop windows.Jeans symbolise a crossing over of limitations of gender and social standing.Not representative of any particular culture,they represent all of them,without any ideological message if not that of the opposition to differentiation—except when they contradict that same generating principle,to become a customised fashion item,with different cuts,shades of blue,stitching and closures,and logo.But this continuing quest for novelty produces nothing but jeans,with their shape,texture and studs.Their durable cotton denim is always assured to wear and age well,and to improve with every washing.Latest-generation consoles like the Sony PlayStation are representative of a way of playing that is the same throughout the world.In the past other toys had already had the capacity for market penetration in many countries around the world,such as the Barbie Doll and the Playmobil.Nevertheless,these were toys that,while homogenising desires and rules of the game,still made it possible to safeguard children's imagination and their relationship with the specifics of tradition.
Finally,the product's use and disposal.The object tends towards increased performance in qualitative and quantitative terms.In highly technological objects only a few of its many uses will be accessible to the ordinary user;there are no replacement pieces for its simpler parts as maintenance is foreseen only for its more complex parts,or else it is meant to be"up-graded"，that is,substituted with a new and more evolved version.This easy disposability is creating a major ecological problem and underlines the excessive consumption of resources that our planet will not be able to sustain if not by means of a new approach to manufacturing,conservation of materials,limitation of energy consumption,recycling of discarded products and the use of eco-compatible methods.This is a scenario that leads me to the belief that a real cultural revolution is necessary,one that concerns globalisation in all its aspects(economic,cultural,political and institutional)，not as a factor of imbalance and inequality but as one of agreement and development that respects the rights and opportunities of man in the contemporary setting in harmony with his history and culture.And my hope is that the world will decide to think about the future with an awareness of the limits of what is possible.
Ethics and aesthetics
the toolbox
from Il linguaggio di una lezione,Lectures 3，Roma 2014
doubt
from Lezioni,letture e parole,Lectures 2，Roma 2014
training
from Il design è ubiquo,Lectures 1，Roma 2014
the agon of a smart culture
from l'intelligenza desiderabile,DIID 58|2014
homo faber
from Dispute vere e presunte,DIID 57|2014
performance
from Mutazioni,DIID 44|2010
into chaos
from More than 100 designers,DIID 33—34—35—36|2007
how,what,who,when,why
from Difference&Design,DIID 24—25|2006
light or strong
from Difference&Design,DIID 24—25|2006
the reasons
from Mass design o il potere dell'oggetto anonimo,DIID 15|2005
the aesthetics of high tech
from High Technology,DIID 9|2004
coexistence of systems
from Ethnic &technical,DIID 6|2003
ethically-minded
from Global design ed ethics plus,DIID 3—4|2003
the dominant taste
from l'arte della riduzione,DIID 2|2002，
For many,especially in the design disciplines,ethics and aesthetics are two sides of the same coin.Ethics in the broad sense deals with forms of human behaviour to which to attribute political and moral values.Aesthetics commonly regards the search for beauty,the sensitive beauty of our surrounding environment.Ethics is an ideological condition,while aesthetics is an experience.Ethics allows us to sustain aesthetics and aesthetics is necessary to conduct ethics in its operation.There should be no design at all that does not contemplate,in its phases of its conception and material configuration,in its life cycle,the theoretical and practical combination of the terms"ethics"and"aesthetics."It is an aspiration that probably appears ideologically complete,but is less and less present in design practice.
the toolbox ＞ We are well aware that,in the design field，"images are words，"and as such possess an absolute linguistic autonomy;however,albeit with respect for their eloquent communicative foundations,it may be hoped that the use made of them will complement the responsibility of a complete,authorial,and non-fragmented verbal discourse.Maurizio Ferraris says this clearly,giving three absolute values to the meaning of language.He asserts that language must always be the result of a thought(there is no true language without true thought,because thought is the mirror of the mind);that language possesses a pragmatic-operative nature(that is to say,understanding that it can be used under certain conditions,beyond the mere descriptive functions);that,lastly,not everything can be language,and that therefore language cannot do everything,also because"the crisis of a civilization is presented as a crisis of language.Language may be the way of truth,but it is also the way of lies,and of loss of meaning."
According to a well-known metaphor,language is a kind of"tool box";each of these tools serves a different purpose.For example,as British philosopher John Austin has shown，"(language also serves,ed.)to do things,to build objects of a certain type […] it is not limited(only,ed.)to describing and communicating,but builds objects."Austin's words are more than enough to establish how necessary it is to grasp the complexities we are dealing with(from the scientific and methodological standpoints)when,regardless of content,we examine a lesson's authority with respect to the language used.
Ugo Volli states that"man is the animal that speaks;he lives in language.This statement underlies all philosophy,from Plato to Heidegger.Today,we have not changed our minds from that initial intuition,but(we may place,ed.)language in a broader and relatively new category-that of communication."This means we cannot forget that"language is communication"(and that"the medium is the message，"as Marshall McLuhan wrote in 1964，observing the mass media in relation to modern society):"despite this,it bears remembering that every communicative action is always an act of dialogue,and a dialogue always entails an ethic,because it presumes more than one person exercising it through democratically shared conventions".
doubt ＞ These observations raise questions on the meaning to be given to our initiatives in the area of the culture of design and the role these initiatives have inside and outside our"intellectual circles."In short,it is always doubt that moves all.For Descartes,it is the origin of wisdom.The origin of questions-of all kinds.
There is the title of a book from a few years ago that is suited to our case,written on the occasion of an exhibition on Ettore Sottsass,and it is he himself,as one learns from reading of text,who came up with it:Vorrei sapere perché("I would like to know why")，from 2007—8.To his interviewer,Sottsass declares that he always has"a position of doubt about things.I never have a good idea why they happen."But they do happen.Some pages later,he offers his point of view,which is relevant to our case,on the term"avant-garde."He is convinced that this is a beastly word:"I have it in for the word avant-garde.I am not interested in the avant-garde when it is defined as such.I am not interested that someone thinks they are on the cutting edge.When we were making Memphis,they would ask us what revolution we wanted to make.They treated us as the avant-garde,in fact […] but we were not the avant-garde.We were poor wretches who thought we could see what goes on when designing with new things,with new materials."I consider the tendency for the new that Sottsass evokes as the necessary aspiration for the layman's knowledge of the things that surround us-including their fragility.In this setting,the design should always be waiting to understand its role,and ready to change the operating tools because everything changes with fewer constraints and greater empiricism.We then have the possibility,as scholars and teachers,to understand that design culture's demands for emancipation are now formed spontaneously,unexpectedly,and even improperly.And this is a reality that cannot be underestimated.It must not be.
training ＞ Therefore,design is expressed by convention in the ordinary dimension of the everyday,and therefore is not only recognizable in the objects accompanying a part of contemporary society,but is,rather,expressed as diffuse design applied to stable goods,conceived for all productive and entrepreneurial sectors;for a scenario that clearly and tacitly expresses the rhetoric of the design needs of advanced industrialized societies .
In its traditional task of giving shape to products,design renews its disciplinary foundations,comprising within its sphere of reference all the complexity of industrial design.Training,then,is lifelong,and requires a learning system able to transfer advanced knowledge,but also the ability to understand the connections between supply and demand;that makes it possible to know the instruments for managing complexity;that can provide the methods for analyzing demand and translating it into innovative articles of use in relation to performance requirements in addition to the production technologies.
the agon of a smart culture ＞ This is why those who deal with design,now and in the future,must grasp that the"intelligence introduced into things"requires,before anything else,a personal,theoretical,methodological,and objective awareness of the role of the"intelligence in things."They must be made to understand that when new scientific knowledge produces new technologies-whose applications modify and increase the characteristics of the materials,or even invent new ones-the paradigms of the consolidated design models,and above all a design's reasons in being transformed into a product,change.It is unthinkable that one need merely switch the head and the feet of some mute object and then give them life with"wireless devices"in order to access the agon of a"Smart culture."A sterilized recovery of established types,integrated solely with new technologies in order to"enrich"products and the product systems with contemporary performance features,is also improper.Probably,the only true intelligence that does not betray a sort of"smart philosophy"nowadays is that of the materials that also—given the commitment of designers/experimenters and of progressive companies—play the basic role of an accredited smart innovation.To provide an intentionally naive example in the field of textures,the much maligned Formica was unable to catch on immediately as a substitute for previous materials without simulating their characteristics,as it did with wood(it would suffice to recall how Roland Barthes distrusted plastic and then went on to exalt it in his memorable Mythologies).It took years for Formica and laminates,and plastic in general,to catch on for what they were and not for what they could look like.At that point,once its composition and workability were perfected,Formica became the way to introduce new and"marvellous"colours into homes yet another proof that there is always a"sincere"way to use materials,as well as a"deceptive"way.The former is measured with the autonomy of a new language,and the latter deceives itself.
The aesthetics of high technology produces the achitecture that appears as giant objects:buildings formed by large sinuous or anthropomorphic forms that accommodate spaces for the most diverse uses,without touching the specific activity or dimensional scale or references to historically consolidated types，
The aesthetics of high technology produces artifacts that appear as giant objects:buildings formed by large sinuous or anthropomorphic forms that accommodate spaces for the most diverse uses,without touching the specific activity or dimensional scale or references to historically established types，"Metropolitan Monsters"effect of superficial transfers of the formal and technological features of everyday objects.
homo faber ＞ This dispute,not at all apparent,on the figure of the designer transformed in consideration of the economic and political changes of social consumption,is the direct consequence of a value-based approach,in which the cultural orientations of open source,of open design,of social design,of co-design,feed on their own,restoring a public model of modern design such as to surpass that romantic and individualist dimension that can communicate the activity of a single person.A design given new foundations in this way acts as a bridge between the exercise of personal talents,collective talents,and new paradigms of utility and beauty that are understood today as accessible to all from every standpoint and under every status,because they are culturally sustained by social utility experiences.There is a claim to play an intellectual leading role-role that gives to those who do something responsibility for the full result of their actions.Therefore,if we wish to find a consistent linkage between these different positions,we must perhaps wait for the principles of the fact at hand-whether with manual or computerized equipment-to encourage the re-emergence of a modern and up-to-date homo faber,the man that,in the hypothesis of philosopher/mechanic Matthew Crawford,rediscovers labour as"medicine for the soul"in a moment when professional careers are crumbling,skills are overturned,and aptitudes old and new are again up for grabs.This was discussed even earlier by Richard Sennett,who raised the need for a"craftsman"who must put traditional and current knowledge into play within a modernity that requires a mobility of thought,and an unprecedented tendency for design.The authors of this change must be individuals capable of freeing themselves through their own professional evolution in a society in which skills tend to become quite quickly obsolete.
performance ＞ Had a chance to visit the new MAXXI,designed by architect Zaha Hadid,for the inauguration that saw more than 20000 visitors come together in an event that has become even more important than the architecture itself.MACRO,the Modern Art Museum in Rome whose extension was designed by Odile Decq,was also inaugurated at the same time.
It was the opportunity to witness a mutation:two great architectural works dissolving into a performance,transforming themselves into two large,temporary installations.
Architecture whose intrinsic feature is that it is a tectonic work was perceived as the ephemeral setting for a performance,an event that mobilised people and things around art.
In what is considered the Contemporary Art Museum of the 21st century,the Anglo-Iranian artist interprets the flows of visitors in a fluid manner,through ramps and promenades.
Visitors become the protagonists of the space itself and movement eventually fills every perception and every viewpoint,to such an extent that any possibility of orientation in terms of space and time is lost.In what should be the celebration of a new architectural work,open to the city and to the whole world,the architecture itself-made of structures and concrete,walls and roofs,rules and proportions-appears to pass into the background,to present instead the mass of visitors who,as well as filling every space,become interpreters and actors,turning out to be the main aesthetic and environmental element.
In these two different and distant places within the city,the MAXXI and the MACRO,the focus is not on their architecture,but on the complex dynamics that have transformed them into a media sensation.Their two architects Zaha Hadid and Odile Decq are stars in the world of architecture and there has been a flood of temporary events—exhibitions like"Chance encounter on the Tiber"，the piece by composer and vocalist Lisa Bielawa,linked to Robert Hammond's urban happening ‘chairs’，the Calamita Cosmica,De Dominicis'skeleton,with its regal nose bidding a sarcastic welcome at the entrance to the MAXXI;together with the many people who have trodden the transparent,high-tech catwalks that cross the dominant red and black colour scheme of the MACRO and the fluid procession that gently crosses the flowing,aerial structures of the MAXXI.
There has been a tide of works,artists,critics,music,video,curious visitors,social events and media;a set of animate and inanimate elements that combine in a great,fascinating performance.And the MACRO and the MAXXI have been a part of this performance,the backdrops and structures of a staging that has spread all round the city.
This is a performance that one witnesses with the emotion that is experienced when viewing a work of art.
Indeed,the MAXXI and the MACRO breathe,live and express themselves in and around this performance,as protagonists in a great installation.Here,two dialectically and physically differentiated qualities of space,use of colour,language and different technologies are compared even though they are apart:two contrasting works of art,which after this great performance go back to simply being buildings.
These new architectural works,although far removed from the great Roman architectural tradition,definitely have a power of attraction and the expressive force to become stable reference points as time passes in the city,irrespective of the dynamics linked to their use.
During my second visit to the MAXXI,on an ordinary and certainly less crowded day,as well as its public dimension,I could feel the connections between the architectural and artistic forms.On this second occasion,the unstable,performance-based nature of the architecture appeared even more evident,made up as it is of spatial setups,multimedia technology and video screenings that help present art that is far-removed from simple figurative representation and requires new technology.Once again the content plays a more central role than its"container"，which transforms in a fluid manner to tell a new story every time.It would therefore be virtually unthinkable to interpret the sense of this architecture separately from Gino De Dominicis'24-metre skeleton lying under the entrance colonnade,or Mario Merz'igloo,the monitors that present the architecture of Carlo Scarpa in the exhibition dedicated to him,or the noise of the drill in Diller Scofidio+Renfro's installation.
In a through-line that links this new Roman architecture with many designs presented in this monographic issue of DIID,architectural design becomes design of an empty space,whose performance-based and theatrical dimensions enhance its features.In the case of Diller&Scofidio's design to convert the High Line(an old aerial railway in Manhattan)from industrial archaeology into a public promenade and park,the architect's actions account for a series of environmental factors that will change its appearance over time.It was designed as transit architecture and does not have a single form,but is made up of many images inspired by its visitors and its vegetation will colour it with the shades of the season,Winter will cover it with snow and its urban decoration will change its perception and perspectives.Using organic materials(nature,plants and even visitors)and non-organic materials(classic building materials like stone,concrete and steel)the emerging ‘agri-tectura’once again is an empty space that is a theatre of biodiversity in perennial change.
Art provides spaces with a meaning and sometimes imbues them with moral values.
into chaos ＞ But could Chaos be exactly what links so many designers and so many experiences that represent the expression of design in its current form?
Don't we live in a state of Chaos,generated by the flow of products invading our world?
Isn't the multiplicity of expressive forms of the useable objects which surround us Chaotic,generating widespread visual pollution?
And isn't the overabundance of features present in a single technical object Chaotic,with so many functions that the quantity of uses becomes unmanageable?
The world of designers is chaotic,as they are forced to contend with design in all its facets:from producing material or immaterial product,to designing products for the home or body;from designing for free time,or work or play or mobility,to designing products produced in large quantities or design that is intended for"unique"，handcrafted products.
In this Chaos,design,with its players and products,expresses a system of ethical and aesthetic values which invade the artificial environment,it conditions social behaviours and how we choose and use objects,and it standardises tastes,consumption times and figurative styles.
What might appear to be a wealth certainly causes confusion,resulting from an anthropological mutation that has invaded not only western society,but the entire planet.It's as if a multitude of styles,uprooted from the most diverse geographical and historic contexts,were torn apart and recombined to create a hybrid of many languages.
This is Global Style,the semantic connection in which all the figurative expressions of many of the world's cultural traditions are cancelled out by an approved expressive form to which all the others refer.
E'il Global Style is the semantic connection which expresses a contemporaneity,where the weight of tradition is blurred in space and time in the relationship between culture and production.It is used to analyse those forms of expression which,no longer influenced by the physical context but increasingly transversally,are relevant for their social role and represent new"races".In short,Global Style is that dimension of products which is expressed through the languages that are created by contaminations of styles from the most diverse cultures and traditions on the planet.
how,what,who,when,why ＞ Although consumers appear to be increasingly demanding in their request for personalised products,a contradiction does emerge:they are continually searching for a way to compromise between the"social"need to own an easilyrecognisable product that provides a certain status and a desire to buy something and personalise it to show that it belongs to them.
Companies respond to this call for personalised products with Mass Customisation,the process that makes it easy for each client to buy a personalised product because its characteristics makes it"different"albeit"identifiable"with its original series.
To achieve this goal,companies use different methodologies and technical processes.
To assess which part can be more easily personalised and if this can be done directly by the client,let's examine certain issues:what in an object can be personalised(e.g.a mobile phone cover);how(e.g.with an accessory that changes its appearance;who(the user himself or the producer upon request by the client);when(as soon as it is purchased and once and for all);why(to recognise it or be recognised).
To satisfy these demands the company designs and produces a series of standardised parts so that they can be assembled in different ways:using so-called postponement,personalisation takes place after production.
This method can be broken down into subgroups:modularity through repetition,replacement,adapted as if custom-made,amalgamation,application or freely combined.Every object,even when producing standardised products,can be personalised.
To achieve Mass Customisation,it's very important that the company is able to turn every interaction into a process by using standard methods and the information on each client in its database;this information can then be used for other consumers.
The company will then be able to quickly satisfy the needs of the same client because it knows what the client is looking for.However,if it has to provide the same service for another client,it won't have to reinvent the whole procedure because it can exploit what it already knows.This is the difference between customisation and mass customisation:storing the needs of a single client as well as the procedures involved so that they can be used for third parties when the need arises.One of the most interesting aspects of mass customisation is the chance to codesign the product with a client,trying to reduce what some authors call the"consumer's sacrifice".
The client must necessarily commit this sacrifice when he buys a standardised and not custom-made product,given that it has to satisfy the generic requests theorised for that market segment.
light or strong ＞ in the culture of design,difference and identity both play a strategic and complementary role.
For example,when designing a building，"identity"involves the way in which the work is part of a system(an urban context,an anthropised environment,a geographical system,in short a specific genius loci)，but it also involves the way in which the rules of the reference system allow the building to relate to the overall environment in which it belongs as"alterity"，as an object that is in any case identifiable.Two things go to make up identity:identification and individuation.In identification,the architectural work is based on rules(figuration,building type,construction materials and techniques,constraints in size,norms regarding town-planning and street furniture,etc.)which the building appears to respect and with which it has certain characteristics in common:the latter determine whether or not the work is in line with the reference framework.In individuation,the building depends on its own specific characteristic traits,both within its own grouping as well as vis-à-vis the groupings to which it doesn't belong.These distinctive traits can be ‘soft’like the ones that characterise a building,even if they are in keeping with the ones that create a harmonized urban environment.Or they can be ‘hard’like the ones that make a building stand out in the urban context(due to its size,function,style,specific architectural importance,etc.).
the reasons ＞ Mass-produced products also allow us to reconstruct(see the article by Mario Morcellini,From Horror Vacui to the Latin Approach to Design)the reason for consumption in mass society as the measure of our longings,even in the absence of need,as the affirmation of the individual as part of a system of relations that envisage the partaking of shared experiences.
the aesthetics of high tech ＞ Inside objects,there is a technology that substantiates their multiple uses and intended functions or the material solidity that makes them last aver time.But high tech aesthetics also contain a superficial technology,when clearly technical solutions are used to conjure up an artefact's complexity,or the elaborate use of new materials hint at a product's innovative content and its inclusion in hypothetical future scenarios.
As if there were a link between an object's radical technical solutions,a sort of muscle-flexing exercise,and the concept of progress and evolution.
On the contrary,new technical solutions make the artefact's functional use and design style lighter,more transparent,increasingly immaterial,ephemeral and rapidly obsolescent.
It's then that we turn our attention to the"hardware"of the technique used to design and produce new artefacts rather than the"software"of high tech aesthetics.
We believe that a debate on high tech design requires more careful examination because it is the key to understanding how the various artistic genres(architecture,design,painting,videoart,etc.)have dealt with the concept of contemporaneity which has been expressed more often by the redeeming idea of technique and its marvels rather than a dialectic relationship based not on ideology but on ethics,analysis and critique.
High tech aesthetics produces architectural works in which the structural framework exploits complex trussing,guy cables and reticular exposed elements that require complex measures to protect them from fire,or lightweight,transparent floors,off-limits for all those who have dizzy spells,with electromechanical or cable systems that use exposed components made of elegant metallic alloys or shiny materials,but rather difficult to maintain and clean and therefore dusty and worn after a few short months.
High tech aesthetics creates buildings shaped like oversized objects:enormous,lithe or anthropomorphic casings that wrap themselves around areas used far the most diverse purposes,without ever coming to grips with its specific activity,dimensional scale or the references to historically consolidated typologies.
High tech aesthetics use curtain walls to cover building exteriors:their colour and luminosity change depending on the led or liquid crystals that even something simple like a short circuit shuts down and turns to grey like giant,switched-off TV screens.
Like a dog biting its tail,an increase in architectural technologies corresponds to an increase in its ephemeral state,and an increase in its functions corresponds to an increase in its own obsolescence.
Even with regard to the form,function and materials of everyday objects,high tech aesthetics is more representative of the symbolic values of the potential of technological innovation rather than the formalisation of the applications and technologies that make the products less ephemeral,useful and suited to the activities they are meant to perform.Technology is used in the miniaturisation of telephones where the numeric dials or displays are difficult,if not impossible,to read if one is slightly short or long-sighted.
It is also used to create the disproportionate number of functions that each technical object is said to possess,without the user being able to access or use them all.
coexistence of systems ＞ Instead,the Ethnic &Technical of the Opening section tries to assess some characteristics of globalised production systems that involve the use of technologies and in particular the tendency to move products from non-western countries to the industrialised west,giving unmistakably ethnic traits to much of what is commonly used in fashion,interior design,communication and technical objects,in short,in many artefacts used in our homes,workplaces and during our free time.
We believe this topic can be studied based on certain objective characteristics of the current productive system and its technologies,just like all those successful products that need ever bigger markets.
At present,artisanal production systems,mechanised systems and systems with computerised equipment and machines where man plays a minor role all co-exist Artisanal methods create"unique"products even if they have similar typological and morphological characteristics
ethically-minded ＞ What sort of ethics is regulating the artificial products that are beginning to flood our lives? And what sort of aesthetics? An ethics closely related to the quality and quantity of industrial artefacts:material and immaterial products taking over our bodies and our environment-a limitless territory invented by man;products that have surpassed the limits of our perceptual possibilities and which concern an enormous number of categories of merchandise.
Scientific knowledge,technology and production capacities no longer intervene solely on behalf of utility objects and technical products but also include the manipulation of living beings.If we consider,as a characteristic of the industrial product itself,anything that can be patented,we must also include inanimate products,virtual products,pharmaceutical products,plant varieties,microorganisms,genes,animals and even human cells and proteins.The aesthetic expression is a languages that results from the mingling of the styles of the most diverse cultures and traditions on the planet.As the most distant places become more and more accessible,new hybrid languages are produced,born of the mixture of disparate stylistic and notional expressions.Languages that fashion rapidly consumes in order to come up with new ones,ever richer in mixtures and references to the traditions of distant contexts.Universal languages that synthesise and simplify as they proceed by stereotypes towards forms of cultural agreement.Industrial products—utility objects—describe the scenario of our lives;their space and market is the entire planet.In what ethics can we see reflected this ammalgamation of customs,traditions,languages,materials,and"regional"ways of production within the global village? What ethics makes it obligatory to wear Nike shoes? What ethics is behind the choice,between two equal products,of the one with the logo—even if it costs more? What is the ethics behind the circulation of a pharmaceutical product in the first,third and even fourth world? What regulates the use and control of communication products or Internet navigation? What are the values upholding the use of innovative technology for the production of invasive technological objects,over-crammed with more functions than required by the needs and capacities of the end-user? The technologies capable of zeroing the space variable are at the basis of globalisation and subject the variation of time itself to domination.The technical drawing is depersonalised by the universal language of Autocad and the Internet;the drafting of the project and the executive drawings of a product can be seamlessly carried out in the most distant points of the world and allow for continuous work 24 hours a day employing personnel only in the daytime hours.
the dominant taste ＞ We live daily in the presence of an enormous number of artificial products,objects that give definition to the various scenarios of our domestic lives.They are the technological artefacts with which we interact and which are the icons of our"material culture".They are tools that share a variety and multitude of formal connotations,making up a constellation of products with no stylistic unity but are rather the expression of a multiplicity of languages.Missing is that exploration that creates a dominant"taste"，that line of research aimed at formalising one language,dominating or juxtaposed to another that wants equally to state its supremacy.
But it is precisely the co-existence of so many and diverse languages that is the characteristic of the dominant"taste".This apparent richness—surely also a condition for disorientation—is,in fact,the result of an anthropological mutation that has affected not only Western society but the entire planet.
It is as if a myriad of styles,stripped of their geographical and historical roots,had been sewn like so many fragmentary seeds for the propagation of as many new languages.The result is a new International Style a"Global Style".The International Style was the result of the practices of the Modern Movement;of an artistic experience expressed in architecture,painting,sculpture and the applied arts by means of a series of avant-garde movements that brought about the world-wide diffusion of theories,methods and languages indifferent to their contexts:a skyscraper for Baghdad or for Chicago offered equal occasions for stating the same constructive,functional,stylistic and technological principles.
The"Global Style"expresses,instead,the condition of our times in which the quantity of expressive forms no longer coincides with the variety of products produced by cultures and traditions with their own expressive specificity.
This co-presence of numerous styles is a constant throughout the so-called global village and creates,in fact,the condition for a planet-wide acceptance of an intermingling of regional cultures.As for technology and performance,what still prevails in products is the most and best of that which industrially advanced Western societies have been able to express.
But what is significant,on the other hand,is their stylistic intermingling of cultural languages far distant from those of the"old continent"，showing clear ethnic traces in their design,colours and materials.It seems that the Euro-centric conception of culture is gradually being supplanted by the traditions and cultures of emerging countries whose potential for growth and role is beginning to prefigure their front-line function and their capacity to impact on the future of scientific and technological development.
In order to orient ourselves among the difficulties in finding the theoretical coordinates and references for the dissemination of this multitude of languages,I think it would be useful to look carefully at one of the many notional expressions and theories upon which the design and production of contemporary artefacts is founded:the approach that takes reduction as its guide.
In this sense,Less is More—i.e.the theme to which we dedicate the opening of this issue of the review-is intended as a reference to an axiom emblematic of one of the most significant phases of the events of the last century,by means of which the great transition from the practice of internationalisation to the present one of globalisation was accomplished.Much more than on the complex and variegated panorama of current events,it was the spirit and motivations behind the rationalism of the Modern Movement that provided the roots for Minimalism:one of those phenomena,those fragments of expression within the global system which interests us in this analysis perhaps because it is the most Western,the most ideological,of contemporary styles;and perhaps because it falls in line with a reduction ethic that is in contrast with the exhibitionist logic that animates the majority of material and immaterial artificial products making up the environment in which we live.
The aesthetic of reduction lies not in the simplification of the performance and technological complexity of objects which,on the contrary,are being enriched with new and more numerous uses.Rather it represents the need to organise the rituals of daily human existence,to raise that which is complex to a more profound quality that goes beyond the purely aesthetic—the constant control of reason in the creative process.The aesthetics of reduction means the ability to select the useful from among the superfluous,to understand the most profound rerum natura,to balance esprit de finesse with esprit de géométrie.The theme of the"reduction"and"de-materialisation"of industrial products has been the object of study and experimentation in Italy since the mid—1980s,when the most important contributions led to the development of a design approach based on"doing more with less"—a very different approach from both the rationalist functionalism that developed within European modernist practices as well as from the radical design of the early 1970s,with its extremely radical counterculture approach calling for privation and austerity and the destruction of the object
Useful and useless
lifelong education
from Quello che è utile fare e ciò che è utile dire,Lectures 2，Roma 2014
memory
from Lezioni,letture e parole,Lectures 2，Roma 2014
the crisis of architecture
from Il design è ubiquo,Lectures 1，Roma 2014
an integrable design
from l'intelligenza desiderabile,DIID 58|2014
a new balance
from Dispute vere e presunte,DIID 57|2014
a large farm
from Da Orwell a Disney,DIID 48|2011
interconnections with man
from Ecodesign e nuovi scenari,DIID 41|2009
practices
from More than 100 designers,DIID 33—34—35—36|2007
the designing of food
from La progettazione industriale del cibo,DIID 19|2006
cognitive itineraries
from Sincerità e ambiguità dei materiali,DIID 13|2005
the rare and the exclusive
from Design and Luxury,DIID 8|2004
an octopus
from Tool Toy,DIID 1|2002
Discussing utility and its opposite is a fatal combination in the designer's work:inevitable starting from the genesis until the conclusion of a conceptual path that does not always result in an artefact.And it is a condition that also includes the research done in the design disciplines,especially in the field of design,where the boundary between what is appropriate and what is superfluous is,in many cases,a thin one,due to the inability—and it is a cultural responsibility very present in schools—to establish the priorities of a designer's mandate.Clearly,playing—playfulness as such—must never be lacking,and must not be the only reason for a product,but in this case as well it is necessary to be able to seize the moment and the opportunity,so that there is no useless baggage.
lifelong education ＞ While it may be held certain that the main task of the university,through the higher education that it delivers and the research it practises,is that of impacting the social value of scientific culture,it is less a foregone conclusion that the university originates activities that place the merits of real content on the same level as purely symbolic content.It is less predictable because it is always a wager that is made,betting on the culture of diversity among the disciplines in order to create useful opportunities for debate.It is a debate capable of encouraging emulation,and that does not mix it among sciences which,by avoiding being confined on the terrain of divvying up educational credits,encourage,with conviction,the knowledge they have,as well as their protective walls.And no credence is to be given to Queen Christina of Sweden and her reflections unearthed printed on a market stall,which,in the form of an aphorism,remarked in the long-ago seventeenth century that"men in schools learn what they later have to forget."Upon closer examination,this sentence is not entirely mistaken.School(the university)educates you,also by giving you a self-criticism that habituates you to forgetting certain notions in order to make room for the new that awaits.It is like saying that we offer specializations as absolute values,but we devote ourselves to knowledge as intellectual syncretism in order to combat even those areas of ignorance suggested by boundaries referred to out of convenience as disciplinary boundaries.
Appearing on the ambiguous plane of ignorance is Zygmunt Bauman with some of his statements that prudently come into use.It ought to be said that although Bauman—from what he successfully described as modernity in the liquid variant as a synonym for uncertainty and transformism—suffers from an excessive"prophecy syndrome，"it is useful to report what he wrote in conclusion to his book entitled Liquid Life:"ignorance leads to paralysis of the will.One does not know what is in store and has no way to count the risks".Domination through deliberately cultivated ignorance and uncertainty is more reliable and comes cheaper than rule grounded in a thorough debate of the facts and a protracted effort to agree on the truth of the matter and on the least risky ways to proceed.Political ignorance is self-perpetuating and the rope plaited of ignorance and inaction comes in handy whenever democracy's voice is to be stifled or its hands tied.We need lifelong education to give us a choice.But we need it even more to salvage the conditions that make choice available and within our power."
Bauman manoeuvres on a political plane but it is not a level distant from ours,since that which our work perhaps lacks most,the absence of which makes it weak and ineffective,is the sense of its political depth which would help us comprehend—if we were to seek an initial example—how and when to act in the interest of all,so that the good university might survive.
memory ＞ Our acting in cultural terms is always the result of a dialogue that goes beyond the self-referentiality of knowledge.In vogue during the years of participatory politics,the word"dialogue"then freed itself in the term"debate"when it transferred to our territory.How many times have we used the expression"debate in architecture"? Debate on the city? And then the debate on the environment.In more recent years,the debate shifted to the phenomenology of artefacts,but compressed into the useless contrast between Global and Local.In appearance,we are a people that debates,and we in academia are frequently the prophets of debate,at times the instigators,and quite often the confused executors among many.
I therefore cannot believe that whenever our knowledge is called into question,the responsibility arises to restore to this demand its natural prestige.It is a matter of the authoritativeness that originates from study,from the value held by the principle of the transmission of knowledge,from interpreting,then,the mission of the teacher and of the researcher as a genuine social and cultural assignment.These are facts that we know,but our memory appears not to offer enough room for the obvious.
the crisis of architecture ＞ The transformations of the urban scenarios are continuously shifting from architecture to design,showing that the changes in our cities are taking place not only in the usual direction of architecture,but also more quickly through the expansion of the set of objects.The landscape of our cities,the currents of visual thought,and technology,but also the aesthetics of our habitat,depend on the evolution of design:in its versatility of product,service,and strategy.
For many militant-style architects,Vittorio Gregotti first among them,the crisis of architecture—in language,in style,in the ability to break free as a tectonic discipline—is measured with the"success"of the design.
Design,Gregotti thinks,by involving numerous areas of knowledge and professions,has caused a sort of disorder of thought,making it possible for a building to be not only like a pair of binoculars,but to be designed as such.Moreover,design,as a discipline"compromised"with marketing and production,has polluted the possible relationship between investments and objectives in the field of the artificial,but above all it is as if it had introduced the time factor and the principle of expiration for the architectural product.Design is therefore one of the fundamental engines of the contemporary city's operation.One need merely consider how,in the processes of repurposing disused spaces,surfaces and volumes,urban centres,to develop themselves,are indulging social stresses through the continued work of design in the guise of"producer of experimentations of technologies and technical devices，"also within a hard-to-programme spontaneity that requires the improper use of spaces,thus redefining types re-adapted to the new professions.Conversely,between art and design there is a sort of mutual ubiquity in an absolutely clear version:art and design have,over time,eliminated every kind of barrier,finding spaces for common experiences.Outlining these affinities,however,does not indicate that many design objects are equivalent to artworks and as such are to be displayed(this circumstance relates to other factors)，or that that many artworks are shown as design objects(starting from Marcel Duchamp's and Man Ray's Ready Made works)，but that art,in"conceptual"twentieth-century theory,has proposed solutions that design in some way was sowing in its field.
an integrable design ＞ As is naturally the case,the theoretical and material phenomenology of design is constantly traversed by themes and words that catalyze their interests and determine their outcomes.As far as I am concerned,while I am still searching for the remains to offset the debts I have always incurred with the definition of"modernity，"I find myself burdened by the term"Smart"that has intervened on the future of our urban and domestic lives,with the objective of competing on everything,and with everyone.As a designer trained in the school of Quaroni,with the spirit of the lessons that teach understanding before doing(fewer than eight of them are enough in certain cases)，I believe in diffuse design,that of changes with a low content of proclamations.Some years ago,it was enough to say you were aiming for a design that was integrable into knowledge in order to affirm that smart things could be done(regardless of the scale of measurement used);but today,the attempt to do research on the"artificial intelligence"inside and outside of us appears to be compromised by a lingering feeling of inferiority with regard to advanced technologies.Paradoxically,this feeling takes concrete shape in the word"Smart，"a key word that—given the propagandistic use made of it—appears to be the only one that can enable the conceptual containment of the most complex"design processes"that aim to give shape to"change."Perhaps it is because I am fresh from a long reflection on the relationship between the word"smart"and the term"architecture，"but although intuiting broad suggestions of this word,I cannot help assessing the insidious trap it sets,derived from its rhetorical abuse.It is insidious above all because it is utterly toothless,to the point of diluting any anxiety over the invisible future we thus avoid looking into as true design explorers.For cities，"Smart"means representing an idea of them at their most usable,connected,and thick with online services(all included in a smartphone).However,this virtuous urban system centred upon the new communications technologies does not appear concerned enough to offer a new model in terms of forma urbis.Essentially,there are no adequate hypotheses for the"citizens’"interaction with the so-called networks,formalized in material manufactured items different from what already exists.When shrinking the design's scale,a similar reflection may be made in the area of industrial artefacts.We are already pretty good at cataloguing smart objects(objects with performance features capable of interacting,producing actions upon command,remembering,heating,cooling,exciting our sight,stimulating our taste,sight,and hearing)，but we are less so in analyzing the aesthetic and ethical dimension of these Smart objects.Because of this,we are in a highly critical phase in the discipline:we are observing a phenomenon in progress:voluble and incompressible,unstable;but at the same time we are called upon to grasp its impacts on all the profiles of the artificial that,from conception,terminate in the physical and material configuration of"things".
a new balance ＞ Whoever is acquainted with my scientific interests,and whoever is current with some of my more"ideological"positions,knows my uneasiness—at times an instinctive uneasiness—before the word"craftsmanship."I do not accept,and I therefore resist,an entire hagiographic,instrumentalizing,and backward-looking culture that wields the term"craftsmanship"to grasp—remaining in our disciplinary specifics—the origin of design(and thus of"industrial design")and to interpret the future of designing.True or false as it may be,in the attempt to quantify the craftsmanship hidden or visible in industrialized products,many in our environment have forgotten to critically frequent the landscape of industrial production which,in the meantime,has changed its nature in form and content.My irritation,then,was never over the culture of doing,typically and extraordinarily Italian,but rather regarded a series of prophets,masters,followers of craftsmanship(worse if artistic)，who intended to bring much of the"absolute truth"of our work to within the"purity"of the handmade.It is a purity that has never existed.But what does exist—precisely because these itches of thought cannot be scratched—is the will to make these opinions of mine react with the"Makers"phenomenon which appears,within the scope of an increasingly ambiguous debate,to have upset and altered everyone's convictions,considering the evolving relationships between design,production,consumption,and consumers.I wish to say that declaring the Maker strategy represents the model of a new equilibrium in the sustainable relationship between supply and demand in the world of artefacts is improper because the season of the manufacturing industry in its traditional mission has not come to an end.If there is this transformation,it certainly did not impact the so-called productive districts not only in the most advanced countries(Japan,Germany,the United States)，so much as those areas in Eastern Europe that welcomed the industrial offshoring of those advanced countries.And then there is still Korea,and on up to the giants of China and India,whose markets are true green pastures for new things.This is to say that cities,homes,offices,public buildings(libraries,schools,universities,hospitals,courts,gymnasiums,soccer pitches and athletics fields)cannot help filling up with artefacts in which to concentrate indispensable smart features(just attend any electronics fair,like IFA in Berlin,to get the idea)[…] There are high numbers of people who design,in symmetry with those who produce.It is necessary,then,not to fall into the deception that those who make"household"machines to self-produce objects for themselves have found the solution to avoid the flow of goods.Except for rare talents(see the recent example of a car chassis in a box)，many run the risk of deceiving themselves they are marketing online,and then find themselves behind a stall.
a large farm ＞ Design for Pets.The title says it all:it is an issue explicitly dedicated to the themes,designs and products that are part of the eternal,complementary relationship between animals and man in a kind of"universal farm"that contains the limits and hopes of a common path and today entrusts design with a delicate，"functional"role that is more ethical than in any other sphere.
Design for a metaphorical farm,in fact for two completely contrasting ones.On one hand there is Animal Farm,written by Orwell in 1947，where the animals,tired of their cruel exploitation by man,rebel and take control.However,over time,using the same tools and means as their owners,they imitate them in everything from their behaviour to their appearance.On the other hand there is Walt Disney and his imaginary city-farm,inhabited by men dressed as animals,or vice versa,which are positive,grotesque,fun or braggarts.These legends are part of our culture and imagination that contain everything we possess or would like to possess.
We shouldn't be amazed therefore if our pets are like humans.
Everything(sometimes too much)is available to them,just like all human beings,set against a backdrop of design culture peppered with collective practices and moral issues that depend on the various emotions that humans project onto them(passion,mania,fear and entertainment)，which are fully present in the typical mechanisms of designing the artificial that are features of contemporary design.
In an examination of the various design extensions that can be applied to the animal kingdom:on a physical,domestic and environmental level.
We thus discover that the time,space and objects we dedicate to those who share our home(or our tyrannical friends)represent two design themes.While the first interprets the animal environment through objects that they need to exist(imagined and produced by humans,however)，the second stigmatizes the theory of a shared living space for different beings through articles that combine animal ethics and human aesthetics.These ethics are sometimes distorted(through zoos and themes parks)into simulacra of natural habitats whose purpose is entertainment and spectacle.This is also a private spectacle that is seen in the growing phenomenon of ‘Fashion for Pets’，in which human obsessions with clothing and style are transferred to innocent creatures that become the latest fashion victims.
interconnections with man ＞ I would like to analyse a movement that goes against the trend,as revealed in a recent exhibition:Paris Design in mutation.
The theme of change entails the idea of experimentation,and this obviously also includes the issue of sustainability,but without it holding back far-reaching renewal of products capable of making them the expression of a new present and a visionary future.
It is very interesting to note that public institutions(Délégation aux Arts Plastiques/Bourse Fiacre,Bourse AGORA pour le design,CulturesFrance,VIA-Valorisation de l'Innovation dans l'Ameublement)have turned to designers,including some very young ones,to understand where we are going.
It shows great far-sightedness by the country to ask designers to interpret the changes we are undergoing,giving them the task of proposing products or systems that represent the new world and can help to improve life within the new scenarios.
To revamp the residential culture,Jean-Louis Fréchin investigates the digital world and makes use of its potential while simplifying technical objects:WaSnake is a shelf and digital communication device,WaazAl is a shelf and audio playback system,WaDoor is a door and a screen.
In this way,Jean-Louis Fréchin uses new types of products to reduce the quantity of items in the home and their interconnection with humans.He proposes a domestic environment in which everyday objects interface with the net and home computers.He is an exponent of the digital revolution,which is seen as an opportunity to modify the interaction between products and people,our relationships with space and time,and finally to give a form and identity to the intangible economy.
François Azambourg takes an almost artisanal approach to pushing the performances of materials to their limit:all of the energy is squeezed out of fabrics,wood,metal,resin,glue and foam.The resulting objects seem like exercises in style,but closer inspection reveals them to be the expression of design guided by the economic utilization of materials.He presents a complete collection of chairs that show how a new approach to the interweaving of materials can shape new objects.Their appearance crudely tells us how they are formed.
In the world of Mathieu Lehanneur,our bodies and the environment live together in a huge number of interrelationships:with temperature,sound and the air.Our very existence and our equilibrium are affected by continual adaptation due to alterations in external parameters.Therefore,his objects cause changes in habitats:Bel Air is a system that uses plants to filter the air;Q nebulizes the air;K absorbs daylight and then emits it in the domestic environment;dB is a generator and diffuser of oxygen;C is an infrared radiator.
The EDF R&D Design Studio creates products that tell users how much energy is being used during various everyday activities in order to encourage all of us to change our habits:when set up correctly Coup d’oeil shows the amount of electricity being consumed,as the colour of its special sensors varies;Semaforo and Orloge??? apply similar principles.Experimentation with this group has led to the creation of other items such as those for the production of energy.
practices ＞ In the first case,without ever abandoning their artistic quest to create unique pieces,designers see their work as a continuous creation of forms intended to please all of our senses,works that are emblematic of a cultivated interpretation of the aesthetic of the artefact.
In this case,designers'experiments aim to reflect the possibility of applying new materials and new manufacturing systems to the artefacts they design,to offer up new types of products,often one-of-a-kind pieces,prototypes that generate new languages which have the power to be ‘trendsetters’.
These items are one step into the future,and are often veritable works of art,visible witnesses to contemporary culture.In questo senso are the experiences of Humberto and Fernando whose research is based on using poor materials or industrial scrap to design objects that are unique for their expressive efficiency;Ross Lovegrove whose work is examined to understand how to move into the future;Roberto Capucci,the author of sculptural clothing that are works of art in fabric;Gaetano Pesce an extraordinary experimenter into the use of new materials for ‘diversified series’of products,and Essaye Myake whose creations express a continuous technical re-examination and renewal.
Ma iI designer act as the interpreters of people's needs,using their ingenuity to transform new needs into new products while eliminating the superfluous,products that are essential in their form and in the use for which they are intended,designed to minimise waste of the materials used,to simplify the production process,and to provide new opportunities for people's activities.Particolarmente I believe some of the most noteworthy are Antonio Citterio,who is as refined in his formal minimalism as he is efficient in the wealth of technological solutions he implements;Matali Crasset,who attentively interprets our daily rituals in order to devise new products for our new behaviours;Marc Sadler,Bruce Fifield,Hugo Kogan,Andy Davey and Michele De Lucchi,who apply the most advanced innovations to technical products,including home appliances,diagnostic equipment,lighting and communication products,and even sporting equipment;and Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec whose research is based on flexibility,multiplicity,reversibility,modularity and combinations of elements.
the designing of food ＞ We could say that when French nouvelle cuisine became popular at the end of the seventies,new areas of food design were invented or revamped:these areas touched on sophisticated experimentation,innovation or the scenarios of the new generation of natural foods that involve the merger of fields of learning and traditional expertise with advanced organisational logic,technologies and knowledge.The invasion,perpetrated by chefs into the field of design and designers involving the formal and aesthetic qualities of food,opened up new scenarios around food design,for example,the design of dishes,the design of food and for food.The design of dishes involves studying"equipment"：this calls for the combined talent of a chef and a designer.A coordinated,pleasant design of the dish and the food impacts strongly on our visual sensorial experience;it involves our sense of smell and sight and it stimulates our taste buds and ears.This requires multidisciplinary skills and expertise that include ergonomics,chromatology,morphology,geometric figures and,of course,gastronomy.Apart from being able to exploit the shape of food and many different colour combinations to decorate the table,food design involves many new experimental fields.One example is the recent performance of Paolo Barrichella's Food Design Studio during the event,Una luce tutta da …bere,at the Urban Light Walk Exhibition held during the International Furniture Fair.Using Tonic Soda Campari,they created edible lamps.They took advantage of the properties of quinine chlorhydrate,present in tonic water,which when exposed to black light,filters the UV rays emitted by neon tubes and creates a fascinating visual luminous effect.Without using energy,the liquid becomes a light source,letting the consumer move around the room with his own edible light.
Finally,food design involves that huge range of products used to taste and eat food(glasses,plates,cutlery and dishes)，table tools(bottle-openers,nutcrackers)and cooking utensils.
cognitive itineraries ＞ Fifty years ago,in his book Mythologies，(Edition du Seuil,Paris，1957)，Roland Barthes expressed contradictory feelings about traditional materials and objects or the ones created using innovative processes.Because they are contradictory,these two standpoints still represent a paradigmatic interpretation of the relationship between materials and object.The first chapter examines the use of wood or non-traditional materials to make toys，‘Current toys are made of a graceless material,the product of chemistry,not of nature.Many are now moulded from complicated mixtures;the plastic material of which they are made has an appearance at once gross and hygienic,it destroys all the pleasure,the sweetness,the humanity of touch.A sign which fills one with consternation is the gradual disappearance of wood,in spite of its being an ideal material because of its firmness and its softness,and the natural warmth of its touch.Wood removes,from all the forms which it supports,the wounding quality of angles which are too sharp,the chemical coldness of metal.When the child handles it and knocks it,it neither vibrates nor grates,it has a sound at once muffled and sharp.It is a familiar and poetic substance,which does not sever the child from close contact with the tree,the table,the floor.Wood does not wound or break down;it does not shatter,it wears out,it can last a long time,live with the child,alter little by little the relations between the object and the hand.If it dies,it is in dwindling,not in swelling out like those mechanical toys which disappear behind the hernia of a broken spring.Wood makes essential objects,objects for all time.Yet there hardly remain any of these wooden toys from the Vosges,these fretwork farms with their animals,which were only possible …in the days of the craftsman.Henceforth,toys are chemical in substance and colour;their very material introduces one to a coenaesthesis of use,not pleasure.These toys die in fact very quickly,and once dead,they have no posthumous life for the child.’
Even if the author focuses on toys and not on the materials,he is strongly against plastics and very much in favour of wood.
A little further on,in the chapter entitled"Plastic"，he writes:"Despite names recalling Greek shepherds(polystyrene,phenoplast,polyvinyl,polythene)，plastic—the products of which have recently been gathered together in an exhibition—is essentially a produced substance …The public stands in a long queue at the entrance to the hall to see how the magic process par excellence,the transformation of material,takes place.An ideal oblong tubular machine built to reveal the secret of an itinerary effortlessly recovered a mass of greenish crystals from shiny,grooved basins,on one side the blue material and …on the other the perfect human object and nothing between these two extremes except a short conduit controlled by an employee with a demigod,semi-robot beret …Plastic is less a substance than the concept of its endless transformation,it is,as its common name indicates,omnipresence made visible.And precisely this makes it a wonderful substance:each time,the wonder lies in a sudden conversion of Nature.Plastic remains entirely permeated by this amazement:it is less an object than the trace of a movement."
In fact,the two apparently contradictory arguments follow two cognitive itineraries of the same journey.In one case,we learn about the history of the material before it became a product and how it was represented with"sincerity."In the other case,the material conceals its origins and the complex alchemy that produced it;a material so"ambiguous"to our sense of touch and sight,and yet so exciting.
So plastic is not vulgar,nor wood,elegant.Wood honestly represents the work of man's hands,the work of an artisan and his tools that cut,shave,smooth and polish.Plastic,instead,is a hermetic and ambiguous representation of the transformation process of a chemical substance and its magic in which man is the robot,the demigod that invents a process and lets this constant process reveal itself even after the object has been produced,as the material changes when it interacts with man,time and the environment.
the rare and the exclusive ＞ The success of an industrial product is measured with its spread into the markets and the consumers'agreement.In fact the more the product demand is high the more pieces are produced and the company turnover and profits are high.
This would make you think that"luxury"，an attribute that is linked with"rare"and"exclusive"objects destined to few people,is not suitable with production form based on great numbers such as industrial products are.Nevertheless it is not always like this.The definition of luxury and its representation are strongly conditioned from factors such as globalization and multi-medial communication,marketing strategies,social customs.
Today the symbolic brand value has been replaced with the"rare"and"exclusive"concept based on the uniqueness of the piece and on its value given by a complex of attributes such as quality and the preciosity of materials,the hands competence able to turn products into finished artistic works.The connection between the object and the V.I.P.that possesses it and therefore the emulation of desires become more important than the peculiar values of the object itself:its specific technician,formal and functional contents are replaced by possession as emblematic and social condition of belonging to a group.
The possession of objects and their ostentation represent a status symbol as much as"griffe"，style and brand product research becomes breathless.The aspiration to possessing objects can spring therefore from a conditioned desire.Desire is conditioned from mass media and advertising which operate on these delicate social,anthropological and mental mechanisms that bias our choices towards brands as much as not only pushing us to purchase a brand product but it make us become quite collectors.
These conditioned aspirations exist also when the object of desire has the highest costs such as purchasing a Ferrari's car,an uncomfortable car with a coarse aesthetical conception,functionally and technologically excessive regarding highway codes and city traffic mobility;anyway Ferrari is the brand winning in the F1 World Championship,and purchasing one of this car is like possessing one of the powerful and inaccessible racing car;and also booking modalities and delivery times give to this product more exclusivity such as an object built on demand to be fitted;it is a sort of exclusivity also given by the excessive costs which are not justified even to pay off all the research and the innovation investments.
But the aspiration to the possession,can gush also from a high culture level desire:this is a conscious desire which make us aware to possess something just for the pleasure of our senses,the pleasure of our body,the pleasure spending our personal time.
In the case of material products,certainly this pleasure has something to do with those characteristics of exclusive aesthetic features that can satisfy our eyes,with uniqueness of materials,technologies,manufacture,and every ingredients which can satisfy all other senses.Sure it cannot be a mass production object,therefore it is difficult that industrial design,which is an activity comparing with mass production and globalization market,could answer as one specialized operating procedure,or high level handmade workers,or an artist.
It's sure a high level culture the desire to possess an art work,which uniqueness is linked to the artist work.
an octopus ＞ Prevailing in the design of objects is an ambiguity and deception—neither its shape not its materials have an organic relationship with the use for which it is destined.
Thus a polyp conceals a citrus-squeezer,something that deceptively alludes to a feather is,instead,a somewhat less noble toothbrush,and vaguely metaphysical shapes of some unknown material are objects whose scale is even difficult to understand.
In this scenario the object comes to be perceived as a living and affectionate presence.It incorporates emotions that act on each individual and,as a result of those emotions,one wants to possess it.The object becomes an object of desire,something precious,affectionate and reassuring that stimulates the entire human sense apparatus.
This is a production trend that has by now become history in the aesthetic of the ToolToy.
Hybrid realities
lectio
from Il linguaggio di una lezione,Lectures 3，Roma 2014
cross-pollination
from Guardando oltre,DIID 45|2010
interaction design
from Dipendenze tecnologiche,DIID 39|2009
hybridisation processes
from Hybrid Cultures in Design,DIID 37|2008
design for cinema
from Movie &Design,DIID 28|2007
social nature
from Ethnic &Technical,DIID 6|2003
transfers
from Trasferimenti di senso,DIID 5|2003
nanodesign
from l'arte della riduzione,DIID 2|2002
Sciences tell us that a body that brings together diverse,completely different characteristics,is a hybrid form.Design has thus always been a hybrid form in the broadest sense it can be given.It is hybrid in content,considering the quantity of players,subjects,tools,and objectives assigned to it.It is hybrid in the designing extensions of the artificial to which it is subjected.It is hybrid in its natural postmodern,free,and inclusive inclination.It is hybrid as a set of critical and rhetorical activities able to contain the possible,while enabling anyone to be the author.It is hybrid in the languages and tools used,capable of changing in the attempt to grapple with reality and how reality changes.
lectio ＞ From a book edited by philosopher Maurizio Ferraris,Domande della filosofia,I cite these words:"We speak every day,we often speak too much,and at times we have the well-founded impression of speaking without thinking.This seems ill-advised to us,not only for its practical consequences,but also because it harms a sort of an implicit presumption of the language:that behind every word,there is a thought.To make this presumption explicit,to see its range and its limits,we have sought to put three points into focus.The first regards the relationship between thought and language.The second,on the other hand,regards the pragmatic dimension of language,which is to say what is done with language other than thinking about and describing the world.Lastly,the third consists of what,in philosophers'jargon,is called a caveat,that is warning to beware of what—again in philosopher's speaking—is referred to as"linguistic holism，"the idea that everything is language(however strange someone who truly thought this may appear)or that language can do everything.No,this is not the case.There are things that language cannot do".I have described the meaning,including the formal significance,to be given to a"lesson"as lectio,considering the duties the university has include that of promoting the social value of scientific culture in a perspective of a common growth of civil society;and while on other occasions I have dwelt on the metaphor of"designed words"to explain the responsibility we have as teachers in the academy in the choice of each individual term to communicate that knowledge of which we must show not certainties,but if anything the virtues of the doubts originating from practices,from research experiments,from intellectual speculations;in this case,through the suggestions originating from many readings.I prudently reflect on the theme of language and on its instrumental nature to give quality to a lesson.
cross-pollination ＞ The distinctiveness of the different disciplines has long since ceased to exist in the relationships between the Arts,Architecture and Design.
The statutory boundaries of the various operational and expressive fields initially became permeable and then blended into each other,with crossovers occurring to such a great extent that a new framework has been established.Architecture,Design and the Arts draw on each other's experiences and experiments.Everything is hybridized,including languages and the methods used to design and formalize objects.
It is interesting to explore this new scenario in which Design's expressive horizons are broadened to take in artistic performances,objects that evoke user items are among the ways in which Art depicts contemporaneity,and Architecture employs the aesthetics of the Design culture,its theoretical and technical materials,and its production processes.
This new scenario,in which the traditional disciplinary bodies of Art,Architecture and Design have been reshaped into a single,new and complex sphere,is effectively and knowledgeably outlined at the latest International Architecture Biennale in Venice.
Sejima presents a different idea at the Architecture Biennale in Venice.
Her intelligent,expert vision of the world involves a concept in which Architecture,Design and Art all mutually influence each other.
The story that she tells takes shape all the way along the route,with a metaphysical portrayal of Architecture:there is more of a focus on the development of work than its formalization.This is the most effective way of tracking down the building blocks of hybridization.
As visitors wander around the installations of the 46 guests,they follow a sort of peripatetic route that derives from Sejima's outlook and is examined in greater deal in the Thinking about…feature.
Between the spirit and theoretical material expressed by Sejima in"her"Architecture Biennale and the topic of this issue of DIID,there is common ground being explored:the awareness that planning artificial elements now involves a new concept in which architecture is the location for the settlement of aesthetic and ethical values that are shared with the Arts and Design.It is this common thread that guides us through the show.
Although the exhibitors all have their own outlooks,it is plain to see a loss of interest in the typological classifications of buildings and a move towards a more human approach;a loss of interest in monumental constructions and a move towards a light,instable,interactive and modifiable offering that ends up blending with the performance.
Architecture that is designed to stimulate all of the human senses is presented.Just as light and colours appeal to the sight in works of Art and touch comes into play with materials,all of the senses are involved as things move on from the traditional concept of definitively organized functions in favour of a cognitive relationship with the work,its utilization,its perception and the technologies for interacting with it.
There is a new relationship between people and the work,and between the work and its surroundings,whether they are metropolitan or urban settings,or natural landscapes.People take on a central role that has never been so important.The work interacts with onlookers:it becomes"light"due to the transparent features that cancel out its materiality;"impalpable"due to the light that shapes its forms in a continual transformation process;and"dynamic"due to the lack of Euclidean references.In the work there is also a"character"that expresses the genius loci of the place but at the same time makes it an external element,as if it had only been put in the location temporarily or as if it were part of an artistic performance rather than an object.In short,there is initially a little disorientation caused by the work because the familiar patterns cannot be identified,but then you find your bearings and comprehend its status as a new expression of contemporaneity.All of the innovative aspects of science and technology—tangibly and intangibly—shine through to give a new vision of the world in which Architecture,Art and Design merge to create items for playful and fruitful use.
Sejima fascinates visitors and gets them involved with a collection of experiments that all look towards the future.Instead of singing their own praises,they show curiosity about things that we do not yet know,but that we hope will meet our expectations.
In the proposals that have been selected,environmental issues are considered but keep a low profile,unlike in the tradition and culture of militant green campaigners.Sejima believes that the solutions for fresh sustainability can be found in scientific research,the resulting applications and new technology.She takes a secular approach that acknowledges the supremacy of humans and is in contrast with the ideological standpoint of those who are hostile to new technology.I would call the latter outlook"misanthropic"，because it works against humans and denies them the new opportunities provided by innovation.
Once again Sejima places people—rather than the object—at the heart of the matter.The first to understand and appreciate this are children,who are not conditioned by overtones and display wonderful naivety in their senses and their emotions.
interaction design ＞ Gestural interfaces,which allow users to surf among audio and video contents,to download images,texts,movies and music,through hand gestures used as a command on a display,or even only by the means of gestures,keeping at a distance from the display,are possible thanks to the combination of Bluetooth technology and digital camcorders or ultrasound and infrared sensors which include Body Language.When in Minority Report Tom Cruise looked at a display and manipulated images and maps,browsing virtual pages thanks to the movement of the hands,it seemed to be the representation of a distant world.Today it is the present,or rather it is already the"present perfect".The same technology will drive our choices in shopping centres,will answer our questions,and will give us information in public bureaux,at the train station and hotel receptions desks.It will affect and change our behaviour and social relations.
Those applications are ruled by Interaction Design,a field of design researching the cognitive approach of interactive systems,whose theoretical grounds were laid down during the 80s.In those years Bill Moggridge(IDEO co-founder)and Bill Verplank(interaction designer and human-factor engineer).first coined and used the term"Interaction Design"，overcoming what in the past was known as"user-interface design"，thus ascribing to the new discipline of user-interface design.the functions that make Design a discipline integrated to the whole process of product design and development.Later on,at the beginning of the ’90s,Interaction Design established itself as a special field of design for operation and research.In 1991，David Kelley,Mike Nuttel and Bill Moggridge founded IDEO,a"lab"which soon became a worldwide famous product and design firm,with a user-centred design approach.An approach that can provide design services for the applications of the interaction between human cognitive system and the tools used to process information:in this way,products suitable to the most different uses,from work to education and entertainment,can be created.Research is therefore focused not just on the improvement in the functionality of technological products,but on anything that can meet user's needs in order to improve his life.The idea of user-friendly technology started gaining ground.
hybridisation processes ＞ We know that the Hybrid(from the Latin hybrida )is an individual generated by the crossing of two or more elements that differ from each other in a number of characteristics.
In the biological sciences,hybridisation is the crossing of two animals or plants with the aim of modifying some of their characteristics,having others emerge or creating new varieties.
A Hybrid,therefore,always marks the passage from a given form to another that"contaminates"the former.
Ovid left us a text(Metamorphoses,Book I)that describes this passage in poetic form.
But this passage also involves the action of homo faber who,beyond his imagination,through the factual practice of techniques,is always generating new artefacts.
The theme of transformation,in its positive and negative aspects,runs through the history of humanity.Without transformation,there would be no development.
Design therefore finds itself governing a process of hybridisation that would otherwise be spontaneous,but that inevitably finds itself having to recover its own disciplinary statute.
There,where historically its role was to interpret man's needs to improve his living conditions,using the manufacturing materials and techniques available in specific eras and contexts,to produce artefacts in continuity with the material culture of communities and social groups,today Design has to face up to a moment of change that does not only depend on the potentialities of technological innovation,but also on many other factors:from the contamination of the various local cultures as a result of the use of networks of IT communication and with the increased mobility that is available to the whole population of the planet;from the shrinking of space and time in a globalised society in which contexts are rendered changeable by a widespread culture that hybridises everything in a continuous process of production and reproduction of artefacts:from the change in our desires and behaviour:in eating,in dressing,in the range of artefacts intended for domestic use,at work,studying,during free time.
In effect,today,technical objects,objects we use,that is,the constitutive elements of our material culture,are the result of contaminations that give rise to different meanings of hybridisation.
The typological Hybrid has to do with the complex system of contaminations that have an impact on the intrinsic properties of a product,when,overcoming the whole historical consolidation of the characters that have settled on it,it introduces,starting from the original model,new uses that alter it until it is transformed into a new artefact.But this also involves the simplest contamination of the characteristics of two or more typologies of product that generate a new typology through metamorphosis.
The functional Hybrid has to do with the various forms of use of the product itself or its typology,such as the transfer of typologies of product from the realities relating to the advanced industrial societies to emerging or developing societies and vice versa.
This is the case with products,that even as they maintain their constitutive characteristics,are used differently to how they were meant to be used.
The technological Hybrid has to do with the system of contaminations that are applied to a product to respond to new needs.This involves new products that are born from the need to improve man's living conditions,and that can be planned and produced with new uses,and with the application of new scientific and technological knowledge.This is the case in forms of hybridisation that use the technological transfer from one field of application to another for new and unimaginable products that represent all the potential of Design:machines whose use we cannot imagine,interactive objects,materials that through the use of nanotechnologies can be applied even to infinitesimally small objects.
The dimensional Hybrid has to do with the alteration of the scale of reference of the object both in relation to its use and in relation to the methods referring to both its planning and manufacture.It has to do with the transfer of the formal characteristics of a small object to a large one,to the extent that household objects appear to form miniature architecture,and architecture appears to be gigantic household objects.
But it also has to do with the contamination of digital technology in the processes of manufacturing the product that,through the use of numerically controlled equipment,should no longer have to be concerned with tolerances,or controllable errors,insofar as there are no longer any possible errors,not even in the dimensions of the infinitely small.
The linguistic Hybrid has to do with the various expressive and stylistic forms of Design products,and it is perhaps the most interesting aspect to study.Partly because the communicative content of Design products is the foundation of the material culture of an era and a context,but also because Design objects often include in their aesthetics the characteristics that are present in the performance of the more consolidated arts,placing themselves in spaces that cross these.
"…the goddess …uttered oracular speech:‘Leave the temple and with veiled heads and loosened clothes throw behind you the bones of your great mother!’
For a long time they stand there,dumbfounded…
Then Prometheus's son comforted Epimetheus's daughter with quiet words:‘Either this idea is wrong or,since oracles are godly and never urge evil,our great mother must be the earth:I think the bones she spoke about are stones in the body of the earth.It is these we are told to throw behind us’.
…obeying,they threw the stones needed behind them.
The stones,and who would believe it if it were not for ancient tradition,began to lose their rigidity and hardness,and after a while softened,and once softened acquired new form.Then after growing,and ripening in nature,a certain likeness to a human shape could be vaguely seen,like marble statues at first inexact and roughly carved.
And quickly,through the power of the gods,stones the man threw took on the shapes of men,and women were remade from those thrown by woman."
Ovid(43—17BC)Metamorphoses,Book I
design for cinema ＞ Spectacular movies as an expressive outlet for design:this is the premise for our musings over the relationship between Movie and Design in this issue of Disegno Industriale.The cinema as a tool to create narrative,but also as an art form behind special effects,stage and costume design,multimedia communications and visual design.These are just some of the most dynamic aspects of the movie industry,a sector in which Italy has led the field internationally thanks to the splendid traditions and expertise of craftsmen and Oscar-winners like Danilo Donati,Dante Ferretti and Carlo Rambaldi.If we look at international production,reviewing masterpieces by Stanley Kubrick helps us understand how innovation in the movie industry is not just a question of style,but also of cinematographic technique.For example,the sets and techniques experimented and used to produce 2001.A Space Odyssey show how people imagined the future forty years ago and how design was part and parcel of the construction of sets and atmospheres which even today still look feasible.To talk about movies and design today means again focusing(even after the advent of the computer age and new multimedia tools on how these two fields can be combined to help the user/spectator discover the imagination of designers and directors(Saul Bass,Tim Burton)and ho they portray and inspire feelings through movement,reestablishing the right empathy between objects and people.It's no accident that these are the notes used by the director Peter Greenaway to interpret"Blow the trumpets! Overture—2000 years of Italian creativity"in the newly-opened Museum of Design at the Milan Triennale,an installation that welcomes and accompanies the visitors through an exhibit design in which multiscreen projections show reruns of old Italian masterpieces.The objects"in front of the fluid movie wall"seem to be"part"of the scenes of the feature films in the background;they tell the story of the"obsessions"of design(Italo Rota)，or perhaps we should say of some of its more important"categories"or"scenarios"(Andrea Branzi)：The Light of the Sky designed by Antonio Capuano,Supercomfort by Pappi Corsicato,Dynamicity by Davide Ferrario,Stackable Democracy by Daniele Lucchetti,Animist Theatre by Mario Martone,The Simple Great by Ermanno Olmi and The bourgeoisie and the sacredness of luxury by Silvio Soldini.
social nature ＞ a careful analysis of the trend towards homologation of all the products we use in our daily life,both publicly and privately,in both the southern and northern hemisphere.In the so-called Global Village,this contemporary characteristic tends to eliminate the peculiarities of material cultures and traditions which,in practice,belong to specific territorial and geographic contexts and which,vice versa,promote the worldwide distribution of similar objects and technical products.This trend has implications of a social and economic,political and moral,aesthetic and cultural nature.It affects the development of technological innovation and production systems.It is a complex subject and the magazine has focused on its own field of competence,namely the functional performance,technical characteristics and formal contents of all material and immaterial products and product systems that constitute our artificial environment.
transfers ＞ Today,we can raise environmental awareness producing an impact on the management of the complete life cycle of an industrial product by saving energy and materials in the production process,making assembling and dissembling operations easier in the production and dismissal of products,reusing and recycling materials and components of dismissed objects to manufacture new products.
Environmentally friendly products and,in general,a sustainable Environment are crucial aspects in domestic and international policies aimed at enforcing strict laws or a code of behaviour,as well as fostering sustainable production by promoting car recycling and catalytic converters.
Investment strategies,research and development projects of companies were affected.
In 1993，FIAT carried out the F.A.RE Project(Fiat Auto Recycling)，promoting a car recycling project or"cascade recycling"of some components such as propylene bumpers,that become raw materials through crushing and granulation processes and were used to manufacture simpler components(air channelling devices)in the first generation,or car mat in the second generation.Recycled glass was used by other companies to manufacture bottles and jars;seats were used in the building and decoration industry to make fitted carpets.In the third generation,or the last level of the"cascade"，materials already exploited and not to be recycled again were used as alternative fuel for furnaces,recovering their residual fuel potential.
nanodesign ＞ Nanotechnologies open up research into complex objects invisible to the human eye,such as micro-robots able to repair tissue damage,to destroy pathogenic micro-organisms or to impede or even invert the mechanisms of ageing.While in biology nanotechnology is associated with the genetic engineering revolution,in the science of materials the prospects are equally fascinating.Chemistry,physics and electronic engineering all find their maximum interfunctionality in the possibility of generating materials and devices whose electrical,optical,thermal and mechanical properties can be pre-set.For example,the application of special devices,such as organic Leds,made up of an organic film placed between two conductive layers and able to convert an electrical signal into a luminous one,could offer greater design freedom in the lighting sector.Other examples include organic polymers suspended in vitreous or plastic matrices with special optical properties for the creation of intelligent glazed surfaces to be used—once costs have been reduced—in the automobile industry,building construction and agriculture.Nanotechnology can,therefore,be considered a form of matter digitalisation ushering the science of materials into an evolution analogous to that triggered by the digitalisation of information.
The axiom Less is More assumes new meanings as compared with its origins.It becomes a search for a new balance between artifice and nature through a reduced use of materials and energy and a greater attention to the creation of eco-compatible objects;it becomes the skilled control of the most micro-metric tolerances in production and the stimulus to reduce redundant and invasive formal notions;it becomes the stimulus to design and manufacture sophisticated technological objects using tiny and immaterial information technologies,intelligent in their functioning and expedient in their interaction with the end-user,whose access involves simple,ergonomic gestures and no expert knowledge;finally,it becomes an opportunity for the study of the reduction of the physicality of things within the scenario of the application possibilities of nanotechnology—i.e.the extreme reduction of form.
Innovation through culture
social chromatism
from Il colore racconta tutto il design,DIID 53|2012
semantic value
from Design fra identità e diversità，DIID 42—43|2009
design schools
from Design for Health,DIID 27|2007
conjugation
from Lazio Regione di Roma:sistema design,DIID 21—22|2006
productive territories
from Consiglio Italiano del design,DIID 26|2006
italian style
from Comunicare il design italiano,DIID 49| 2011
italian look
from Forme del Made in Italy,DIID 10—11|2004
Italian design is an intricate heritage entirely consistent with the complex identity of its people and the diversity of its territory.Italian design,however,is a broad and solid social phenomenon,in which non-transitory values connected with the past converge,by way of a common intellectual programme that may be summarized in the expression"innovation through culture."It is a phrase that can be translated into a programme,the one most adhering to an idea of continuity between different generations,that makes the work of masters,artists,young designers,anonymous designers,and businesses all connected in demonstrating the original material culture that history has handed down to us.
social chromatism ＞ From the mid-1990s onwards,it has introduced a new,indispensible relationship between technology and colour,initially with the use of transparent plastic in various hues,and later with a focus on a single,bright shade of translucent white.It is no surprise that Apple's most recent patents cover not only technology but also colour.
First and foremost,the origins for this affirmation lie in the wellknown observation that from the 1960s,design in Italy—as an independent,self-referential discipline—was a result of crossovers in the arts,the osmosis of design experiences and the overlapping of expressive languages.It was a hub of styles,forms and types,of industry and craft,and above all of applied and conceptual art,which has never been afraid to embrace colour.Indeed,with the later radical movements in the 1970s,colour became a sort of social and cultural manifesto to depict the experiments underway with industrial products,with an array of artistic languages introduced by postmodernism,which was reflected in the pop culture of mass communication and consumption.
The projects of Alchimia and Memphis may be offered up as examples all too frequently,but they remain unparalleled.They were similar and different at the same time,whether the item in question was artificial or natural,a graphic colour or a coloured fibre.With their work,colour became a performing,narrative material.
Colour became a way of defining what was essentially a new discipline of design with Andrea Branzi,Massimo Morozzi,Clino Trini Castelli and the Colordinamo research between 1975 and 1977.Stubborn colour projects established the values of"design primario"("leading design")，which included the"soft qualities"of products.As eclectic and ambiguous as it may be,there is a"pictorial"dimension to Italian design.It is dominant in some cases,especially due to the metaphysical changeability that can be attributed to industrial products.Furthermore,the image of"painting"introduces the key idea of reducing objects to two dimensions.It is only a conceptual metamorphosis,but it is enough for the valentine"red"written on sheets to be portrayed as a poppy red pantone hue.
semantic value ＞ The identity of Design of the Italian school is unique enough to be studiedin phenomenological terms.Industrialisation in this country wasn't affirmed until the 1950s.Yet,already in those years,Italy's Design was becoming known at the global level.An extraordinary short-circuit was produced between the so-called economic boom and the context of a widespread and unique architectural and artistic heritage.
On the one hand,there is a system common in areas containing small and very-small family-owned companies,where we find a multitude of complementary artisanal skills:this is what economists studying the"Made in Italy"phenomenon call the"system of industrial districts".
On the other hand,there's a widespread culture of Design formed in technical schools and academies,in Architecture Schools and in Polytechnics,but above all,through daily contact with the"beauty"that is so abundant all around us,and which creates"good taste"to such an extent that it has become a part of Italians'genetic code.
Creativity is associated with deeply-rooted good practices of the trades that are passed down from generation to generation.These trades were born around the big Roman factories and then the Medieval and Romanesque ones,then the Renaissance ones of Brunelleschi and Bramante and the Baroque ones of Bernini and Borromini:stucco workers,modellers,turners,tailors,upholsterers,marble-workers,fresco painters,stonecutters,sculptors,painters,decorators,tinsmiths,carpenters and unparalleled artists,all serving emperors,kings,princes,dukes and marquis,plus popes and cardinals.
The great patrons at whose courts were produced imposing and magnificent works of art,but above all where the practice of creating excellence using excellent artistic and technical skills was fed.The new trade born with the arrival of industrialization processes in Italy,that of the Designer,is measured against this background,with aheritage that is part of the country's material culture and in the boom years arrogantly enters production places from which objects of extraordinary fascination exit;objects that are desirable for their semantic value even before their functions,for the emotion they transmit,for that familiarity that they immediately evoke,colorful and soft in their smooth lines,Euclidean in their lines and in their geometries,made of complex manufacturing systems or of simple assemblies,they are desirable objects to such a point that the new Fiat 500 was considered the world's sexiest car.
In Italian Design,imagination is paired with rigorous designs that mix functionality with irony,and emotion with the complexity of the balance between the aesthetics of the artefact and careful attention to research into new materials,appropriate technologies and all that goes into the most innovative experimentation,with a view to the future.There are many great masters of the Italian School and each one is unique.I think that here it is appropriate to remember Bruno Munari.A man of rich and extraordinary complexity,whose experience crosses Visual Arts and Design with the spirit of the homo faber,but with the culture of an intellectual who had frequented applied arts and sciences,philosophy and pedagogy,literature and great travels to the Orient.He always focused on applying method to his creativity,which allowed him to create proposals for men and the world of children.In the Italian Design school—also supported today by a network of institutions inside and outside the national university system,at the leading edge of European education—there is a methodological and cultural thread that helps us adapt:major economic transformations or major cultural movements that follow each other propose new artefacts profoundly rooted in this country's history.
design schools ＞ The increase in graduate courses and faculties of design is a response to the demands of young people who want to become designers,but above all,it caters to the needs of companies who require new kinds of professionals not trained by traditional faculties.In fact,design schools are the ones(perhaps the only ones)which,compared to other schools,have modified the way they teach to adapt to the changes introduced by new technologies.
The IT revolution has changed the way we access knowledge;it has transformed design techniques,making it possible to produce perfect simulations;it has changed the relationship between design and production through remote control of numerically controlled machines which implement with pinpoint precision the indications contained in a design;it has introduced automated production processes instead of traditional manufacturing machines,it has modified the relationship between the object and the user by introducing products that modify their performance and even their morphology through an interactive relationship with the user.
All this is taught in design schools:not just the theory,but the practical issues as well;the boundaries between theory and practice are established by these new fields of learning.In fact,in design schools,teaching now exploits a multidisciplinary.In short,design schools have quickly understood that they need to teach students new professions given the enormous influx of artificial material and immaterial objects which require new knowledge,new understanding and new technical and operational skills.
In design schools,the entire training course revolves around a"core issue"which is based,almost deontologically,on the potential of the innovative contribution of computers,on the way they have revolutionised the way we think,express ourselves and communicate,on the way they have radically changed production processes and the way we interact,use and consume products.
conjugation ＞ There's no doubt that the production system of Lazio,the Region of Rome,certainly plays an important part in Made in Italy.
First of all,it's important because it combines tradition with creativity and innovation,in other words,the three crucial ingredients needed to create excellence.It's important because of the extensive growth of industries that have turned the opportunities and traits of a region into a system.The industries have merged art and technological innovation;they have taken their historical heritage and used it to generate the potential expressed by the new professions that have developed in the field of tourism and culture.It's important thanks to well-known brands or designer products,like the collections of famous designers:Valentino,Capucci,the Fontana Sisters,Biagiotti and the up-and-coming designers like Galante,Grimaldi and Giardina.
It's important because of the anonymous products that satisfy our everyday needs:the products made in the industrial district of Civita Castellana,or in the composite industrial system complex that has sprung up between Pomezia and Latina.
It's important because of the hi-tech artefacts that stand up to global competition,for example,the products developed in the telecommunications and aerospace district.It's important because of the potential of its chemical,pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
In the world of small and medium-sized enterprises,there is a cultural system that is a source of added value in the productive reality of the Lazio Region.Furthermore,the educational and training system as well as the network of technological poles and centres of research and experimentation supports the productive system by introducing innovative processes and products.
Finally,it's important because the region has its own specific traits.Apart from its manufacturing industries,it has a widespread network of enterprises that operate in the service sector or produce immaterial goods that exploit the skills of new professionals,for instance,the Audiovisual and ICT districts.
Promoting culture by enhancing cultural and archaeological assets in the entire Region is also an economic undertaking:for instance the activities of the prestigious City of Music in the Rome Auditorium and the Academy of Santa Cecilia or those of the widespread and complex network of museums in Rome and the region.SMEs have developed around these activities.These companies employ professionals from the world of design,communications,graphic design,publishing,multimedia,exhibit design,public design and special effects design.In some cases,professional figures have developed in associated businesses that have grown around the Italian State television,RAI,and/or consolidated traditional realities like Cinecittà or the Opera.The culture and production of stage-sets,costumes and clothing design are internationally renowned and there are Oscars to prove it.The roots of these professions are stored in the Warehouse of the Opera House which,apart from the stage-sets,houses over 50000 costumes:they bear witness to Italy's artistic history.In other cases,new activities and enterprises have developed in the design and production of merchandising,or structures like Enzimi,Zètema and Civita that promote and organise events to enhance our cultural heritage or hold art exhibitions alongside the Macro and Maxxi museums that are part of a museum system that has become global.
In the field of design,to satisfy the requirements of the many,sometimes new professional profiles,the La Sapienza University in Rome offers a whole range of educational courses:three-year graduate courses,specialist courses,masters and doctorates.
Apart from the universities in Lazio involved in the field of design,there are other public and private schools which,in some cases,have very high standards(IED,ISIA,Istituto Quasar,the Academy of Fashion and Costumes,the Academy of Fine Arts,Koefia,etc.).The educational syllabuses of design courses reflect the wide range of required subjects which depend on the increasingly complex nature of production.Industrial designers,in fact,have to be versatile:they're not just people who look after the aesthetics of a product,they are highly qualified specialists.Courses include the design of material goods,infrastructure,services and immaterial commodities.I'm referring to visual communications,multimedia and interactive design,i.e.a design that uses the right styles and tools and the necessary and feasible technologies when involved in the graphics of editorial products,packaging and coordinated brand products,animated images and iconic interfaces for computer networks.
Furthermore,with the introduction of microelectronics and the widespread use of computing,telematics,robots,nanotechnologies and new materials,industrial products have acquired performance-related and marketing traits that require multiple skills,to such an extent that design and production methodologies are constantly being reviewed and updated.In fact,design has to be planned and administrated vis-à-vis production strategies and marketing requirements:this is the task of design management and design direction.It's clear that the teaching requirements are in line with the work carried out by the network of centres that create a regional research system:a system that includes strategic projects developed by Space Agencies,the work of the Galileo Test Range(GTR)，the work on new materials,nanotechnologies and their function and the research on the implementation of laser technologies in advanced diagnostic equipment.In the Lazio region,there is a very high standard of design culture and project culture used in the production of material and immaterial artefacts:the added value comes from the relationship that creativity and innovation establish with tradition.
productive territories ＞ Italian design is no longer unitary and univocal,but extremely versatile and multiform;it represents different specialities and vocations from all over the country.
Italian design is now an integral part of a wide range of activities and is used in many fields of production and industry.
One successful example of design are the aesthetic and technological products produced by that amazing experimental workshop,the Ferrari factory in Maranello,as well as the entire Motor District in Bologna.
Design is used in Trieste,in the shipyards of the Fincantieri Company to build the huge transatlantic liners commissioned by shipowners from all over the world,or in other shipyards(Gruppo Ferretti in Ancona,Forlì，Torre Annunziata,Fano,Cattolica,La Spezia and Sarnico;Gruppo Rizzardi in Fiumicino,Sabaudia,Gaeta and Posillipo,Gruppo Aicon in Messina).
Design is used in the Research Centre of the Indesit Group(household appliances)-part of the history of Italian design-and the entire Engineering District of Fabriano-Jesi where there are still some outstanding companies,like the Elica Group.
Design is used in the manufacturing district in the north-east,in the fields of engineering and subcontracting in which Italian SMEs are world leaders in the production of manufacturing equipment for the textile sector or precision instruments.
Design is used in the state-of-the-art labs that research nanotechnology in order to apply innovative solutions to extremely small components,for instance in the Veneto Region(Veneto Nanotech)，in Lecce(Apulia Region)and Modena(Emilia Romagna).
Design is used by ASI and Alenia;this has led to the development of the Aeronautics and Aerospace districts in the Lazio Region,as well as in the interregional districts of Piedmont and Campania.
Design is used in the audiovisual sector in Rome,the first step towards increasingly advanced research.
Design is used in exhibitions,stage-sets and costumes,carrying on a tradition which in Rome has won international acclaim and more than one Oscar for production design.
Design is part of the fashion world in Rome,Florence and Milan as well as the rest of Italy.Apart from the great historical couturiers,Valentino,Capucci,Armani,Versace,Ferragamo,Biagiotti,Prada,Missoni,etc.，there is a network of wellestablished and productive ateliers all over the country.It is one of the most important and successful production and product systems in the world.
Design is used in all the more typical fields of Made in Italy.
italian style ＞ Communicating Italian Design is an arduous task,even more so when you have to do it in a few magazine pages.But taking stock,even if not in an exhaustive way,every now and again is useful and appropriate.
To do this we have chosen a specific period of reference:the first decade of the third millennium.
This is a decade in which the Italian design system became increasingly polycentric;an expression of a range of productive and cultural realities which have affirmed their specific nature and special features(although in an increasingly globalised manner)，for example in the area of training,with various schools forming an extensive network across the country.
It is a decade in which new designers emerged,linked to the Italian production system,whether from Italy or from different countries.
In some cases their way of designing carried on the theoretical,cultural and methodological approach of their teachers,who contributed to making Italian Style a worldwide success.More often,there was a trend of discontinuity,and a new way of understanding the discipline of design.
A new way that accounts for the elimination of distances between national cultures and traditions which were still far removed in the previous century.It is a new way of looking at the present and the future,with awareness that the boundaries of art,design and architecture are becoming increasingly ephemeral,as there is growing hybridisation and contamination between these disciplines and new material and immaterial expressive forms of communication are emerging.
It is a decade in which,as well as the traditional areas of design(furniture design,interior design,product and transportation design)other applications emerged like exhibit and public design,fashion design,visual communication and multimedia design,etc.These were ten years in which the interest of the media in design grew-suffice it to think of the columns dedicated to the subject in many magazine supplements of daily newspapers.
It is a decade in which many institutions were set up with the aim of spreading design culture:from the Musei d’impresa in the Farnesina Collection,to the Fondazione Valore Italia at Milan International Furniture Fair,from Abitare il tempo to the opening of the Italian Design Museum at the Milan Triennale which after having answered the question"What is Italian design?"in its three exhibitions,Le sette ossessioni del Design italiano,Serie fuori serie and Quali cose siamo,has provided a new answer only recently in Le fabbriche dei sogni,the fourth exhibition that presents uomini,idee,imprese e paradossi delle fabbriche del design italiano(Men,Ideas,Businesses and Paradoxes in the Italian Design Factory).
Despite a great deal of attention focusing on the more traditional applications of design,too little attention has been paid to design that is expressed in high performance products;those in which innovation(and not only formal innovation)involves innovation of type,of new products for new needs or of so-called anonymous design.
Despite plenty of(well-deserved)attention focussed on leading figures in the design world,too little space is given to emerging designers and new design,involving different areas of the home,the interstitial spaces between man and his environment and man's needs and the emotional involvement of the senses;or involving the relationship between man and the object he uses,as part of new aesthetic values and new visions of the world he desires.
We still remember and remind ourselves that the age of Italian design is the result of history-not that kind of slightly pompous and self-referential history,which is often represented,but that which Giulio Carlo Argan recounted in his extraordinary 1982 essay"The Design of Italians"written as an introduction to the exhibition"Italian Re-Evolution.Design in Italian Society in the Eighties"，where he clearly explains the special features of Italian Style in design and where its roots are to be found.This is the reason why it is once more presented in this issue of DIID.
We have described Italian design in this first decade by focussing our attention on two of its special features:the genius of its know-how and the iconic value of its products.We have recounted how the creativity of ‘Italian Style’is translated into product proposals,as a result of genius and know-how and how these two features combine the culture of artisanship and tradition with that of innovation in the design of products,or how iconic value—a special feature of the objects that make up the history of Italian design—is still an added value in the products of the last decade.
italian look ＞ In 1982 the title of the introduction written by Giulio Carlo Argan for the exhibition catalogue"Italian Re-Evolution.Design in Italian Society in the Eighties"was The Design of the Italians.A title that implicitly defines the subject and the context of his critique.
This seems like a good starting point to try and understand the Made in Italy phenomenon,because it's based on the critical awareness that Made in Italy has its own cultural specifics and is not an overrated instrument of cultural promotion that now needs a comprehensive re-analysis.That's why we think that it's useful to study the Made-in-Italy phenomenon by focusing on all the technical,aesthetic and economic aspects of an industrial product:the same topics that Giulio Carlo Argan examined in his book.
At the end of the second world war Italy came out of its cultural isolation and re-launched an industrial production that didn't focuses on an abstract society,but on real society,avoiding any apologia to ideology.The small,budding enterprises all had one thing in common:the ruthless typological re-invention of everyday objects and,as Argan says,the search for their iconic visibility and the ability to stimulate the senses,the sense of touch and sight,in short,man's senses.
This is the approach that the Italian look adopted and fostered.In essence.its growth depended on giving these products visibility.Even when sophisticated technology made them high-performing tools,these products still retained their formal characteristics:everything tended to be visible.Even rooms such as the kitchen and bathroom—traditionally neglected by aesthetic research and based on efficient technical systems and functional rationality—began to betray signs of product quality that varied and personalised these spaces as well as making them socially acceptable.
Gradually new materials began to transform rooms,objects and their shapes.Flexible,extremely lightweight plastics,transparencies and vivid colours changed our relationship with objects and our tactile and visual sensations compared to what we were accustomed to.Objects began to loose their material value.On the contrary,their ephemeral dimension represented a new added value.
The specific nature of Italian design began to falter with the delocalisation of style and the hybridisation of cultures into the global style of remote objects.Above all,it faltered when the function of design changed,when design was used not only to give an object its shape,size and weight,but,by using computer technology and communication systems,to change the way and speed with which people socially interact.This crisis matches the decline of Italy as a country,its capacity to progress in the fields of culture and science,art and technology,economy and politics.An important crisis of industrial production,despite a common,shared feeling that refuses to entertain the idea of decline by putting on celebrations,protectionist measures and talks about re-launching Made in Italy.In other words,something that is haphazardly associated with agricultural or food products that represent the old traditions of Italy and its culture These are the synthesis of the amazing professional and disciplinary abilities that come from different cultures and countries and which in Italy are only produced or assembled.So I ask:is Made in Italy something that this country can do by using our traditional talent,culture,creativity,initiative and resources? Or is it just a brand that gives products an added value? Should we root our design in local cultures and traditions or insert it in a complex network where innovation and information have no limits? Is the concept of Made in Italy compatible with the global dimension of the free circulation of ideas and the so-called delocalisation of production?
Traditions and transformations
a lesson
from Il design è ubiquo,Lectures 1，Roma 2014
units for architecture
from l'intelligenza desiderabile,DIID 58|2014
new ferments
from Design fra identità e diversità，DIID 42—43|2009
between two lands
from Le Pasabahçe,DIID 40|2009
popular design
from Design for Health,DIID 27|2007
aestheticising
from l'ornamento e l'estetica degli oggetti,DIID 23|2006
no-name
from Mass design o il potere dell'oggetto anonimo,DIID 15|2005
the flow of products
from Contaminazione,trasferimento,DIID 14|2005
cultural complexity
from Identità e diversità，Mercosur Design,DIID 12|2005
Recollections and testimony,transmitted between people,between different generations,as well as social events,rituals,shared practices handed down.All this is tradition.Tradition,then,while consolidating itself through cultural sedimentation,changes without interruption,because it transforms its own knowledge.It updates it continuously and randomly.It is the same process that accompanies the exegesis of design:being a place of deeply rooted memory,and at the same time placing oneself in the groove of change,of alteration,of modification-spontaneous or induced by causes inside and outside its own mandate.Design is therefore a model of equilibrium between the profundity of the past,the condition of the present,and the aspiration for a possible and useful future.
a lesson ＞ Always looking for a good read to generously facilitate the task of writing,we ran into a 1917 essay by Russian philosopher and mathemetician Pavel Alexandrovich Florensky,with the title"Lesson and lectio."He says:"It would not be out of place to define the ideal lesson as a sort of dialogue,of conversation between very spiritually close people.A lesson is not riding a tram that carries you,inexorably,on fixed tracks and takes you to your destination by the shortest route,but a walk,an outing,albeit with a precise,final point,or better,a walk that has a precise general direction without having the single declared need of arriving there or of doing so via a specific road.For those who walk,it is the walking and not just the arriving that is important;those who walk proceed serenely,without quickening their step.If they are interested in a rock,a tree,or a butterfly,they stop to have a closer,more careful look.At times,they look back to admire the scenery or—and this also happens!—they retrace their steps,remembering they have neglected to fully observe something instructive."
Although redundant and weighted with emphasis,this is a passage that establishes,with agreeable moral acceptance,the basic principles of teaching.The lesson,is the dialogue between"very spiritually close people".
units for architecture ＞ In recent years,the field of architectural design has adopted the word"smart".It seems to have become a remedial term used to assert one's support for a sustainable and integrated modernity that makes cities more usable and connected,replete with myriad online services.Nevertheless,all this is not enough.The impressions that the"smart"concept evokes often prove to be rhetorical overstatement,especially given that when we consider the concrete examples produced by smart culture—both in terms of the buildings and the products that use new communication technologies no suitable models for new forms of artificial intelligence emerge,forms that could allow us to glimpse the physical structure of new aesthetics for different needs.In short,scientific knowledge moulded by architectural design seems more of a slogan than an actual opportunity for reviewing established design models,or testing new product and service paradigms,or investigating the reasons behind a design as it develops into a product.I visited the International Architecture Biennale of Venice,edit by Rem Koolhaas,dedicated to the theme of the"Elements"of architecture.After several editions dedicated to the celebration of"contemporary"，this exhibition was intended to investigate the foundations of architecture,starting from the unities of"model and type"(a staircase,a window,a ceiling)，which have always been a critical and physical repertoire for designers.
Observing what has been exhibited,I got the feeling that the transformation of materials and technologies show those changes of the expected paradigms"to think at the new with the old".
If we take in consideration the classical"case"of the door,we would know that its functions,in terms of absolute security,are now being invaded by invisible systems,such as metal detectors,which have rendered useless(certainly in specific contextual conditions)its physical status.
And then,about the theme of the"floor"，it is no longer just a footpath but an active configuration ables to produce heat or cool—as demonstrated by the Rotterdam's"techno-disco"that produces energy—or as a system that guides the Robots thanks to magnets,as happens in some storage areas of Amazon where the human presence is forbidden.
For example,in the area dedicated to the"fireplace"，it was possible to observe that with digital technology"things"become more responsive to human needs.
On one side,a the primitive fireplace was showed-one of the first human solution to control the fire discovered near Valencia,Spain;on the other side,there was the future of home heating,a project edited by the Senseable City Laboratory MIT Lab.Thanks to the tracking technology,we not need to heat the whole room to avoid the cold,but instead,we can have a"simple"heat bubble that constantly follows and wraps us in our every move.
According to the opinion of the US researchers,this result is based on an ideological approach to"computer science"，the only one that allows us to freely speculate on space and services.
The exhibition Elements does not stigmatize the inviolability of the past,neither uncritically supports the present,but simply offers indications for future developments.
Obviously,among these indications,the principal is about the infiltration of the"digital"(as synonymous of smart)，into objects or systems,big or small,that are allowed to"hear"，"talk"and"transmit".
Nonetheless,understanding and"admiring"this process of transfiguration of any things into animated systems,doesn't open the question about their usefulness,but rather about their desirability.
new ferments ＞ The whole scope of social involvement remains of the MM experiment,but the approach is different for the relationship between Design and the nature and specificity of the contexts which become not only references for the use of the materials,but above all the fundamental inspiration for the figurative and formal solutions of objects;in nature shapes are sought to inspire new aesthetic Designs.
The Scandinavian school may be the one whose identifying traits still have the strongest link with its origins and its founding fathers(Alvar Aalto or Arne Jacobsen)for whom it was almost a deontological commitment to both affirm the relationship with one's own tradition and to affirm a functional and organic conception for which the object is conceived with respect to an architecture and a dialectic balance between humans and the environment,and humans even become the creators of its assembly and of its composition in the domestic space.
Because of their different histories and culture,and because of the different ways and times in which the countries were industrialized,the Mediterranean school has a more diverse identity system which is different in Portugal,Spain,France,Italy and Greece.
The French school is doubtless the most deeply rooted in the great movements which were the origin of Industrial Design at the turn of the 20th century.
What's more,Paris is the point of reference for the greatest expressions of the artistic avant-garde and the economic system measured itself with the industrial revolution very soon in France.
A School of Design deeply rooted in MM's culture and theories of rationalism and functionalism was established.Design is expressed through great interest in society and people,and in technological innovations.
This is seen in the importance given to decorative arts shows for thepresentation of new products,and specific schools,such as Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers where Jean Prouvé taught.
Design is not only a factor of technological development,but also a fly-wheel for the productive system,and an opportunity for contemporary people to live in a new and better society,as expressed by Le Corbusier in Esprit nouveau or in his concept of the home as a Machine à habiter,a bona fide manifesto of modernity.
The French school's identity is built on this foundation,on the experience of many masters who,like Jean Prouvé，in the last century,expressed the ability of combining craftsmanship and entrepreneurship with the spirit of the homo faber,ever inspired to construct objects through the reasoned use of materials,with a style that combines them to exalt the functions of the objects but to give them a formal expression,to translate technicality in aesthetics.These and others are the major works—by Rene Herbst,Robert Mallet-Stevens,Eileen Gray,Sonia Delaunay,Charlotte Perriand,or Pierre Chareau's Maison de Verre—which constitute the humus that gave the French School its identity.The Maison de Verre,Pierre Chareau's only work is also the representation of how the intimate relationship between industrial objects,figurative works of art,and living spaces with no other references if not the idea of modernity,can be combined in a sublime representation of industrial civilization,in an extraordinary expression of modernity.
Since interest in Design in Spain and Portugal exploded only at the turn of this century,the Iberian School still needs to consolidate into a single system the many ferments characterizing it.
But we can say that in this region Design has a direct relationship with the Post-industrial cultureand economy,almost skipping the industrial ones,or at least experiencing them but not making them its own.
The new ferments are expressed not only in products of great interest but also through a widespread sensitivity to the influence of local cultures,production and consumption,against the background of global impact;by a sensitivity to a concept of Design not only as a discipline linked to objects and their function,but as an instrument to explore processes,often to serve science;by a sensitivity to the need to produce a new way to spread new things,an ethical Design in today's change of epoch and methodologies,representing the guiding star of social and sustainable development of cities and consumption.
But it is also in its roots of the great handicrafts tradition and in the use of applied arts that,in the past,the very image of the urban contexts and domestic environments was successfully characterized with strong expressive content through the use of high-quality products such as the multicoloured azulejos,the ceramic tiles covering buildings,or in the two-toned calçada portuguesa,the traditional white and black basalt or granite pavements in Portuguese cities.These show the quality of the Portuguese urban space.And,further,the roots in tradition of the modernist culture have given Spain works of great importance.Yet,it is clear that a highly evocative Design is making inroads especially in Spain:products that stimulate all the senses,products that capture life but that draw the hand.Joyful objects that create emotion are the result of new ideas,of innovative and avant-garde suggestions,that express all the radiance of the Mediterranean.
between two lands ＞ A different Mediterranean and different Design.We want to investigate the Design experiences which,as an expression of material culture,are to be found in the part of the Mediterranean that is considered peripheral by the Eurocentric view of history and culture and that I,on the contrary,believe is central,precisely due to its history and culture.First and foremost,the centrality is geographical,because Istanbul is the only city in the world that spans two continents:Europe and Asia.It is also based on Istanbul's political,economic and social history,first as the capital of the Byzantine Empire and then of the Ottoman one.Istanbul is central as an extraordinary place that conveyed its unparalleled cultural experience to the entire Ottoman empire;a place whose true greatness is not always recognized.We spend a great deal of time studying Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Italian Renaissance,and less looking into the exceptional cultural and political experience of Suleiman the Magnificent and Sinan,the architect he entrusted with designing the mosques that give an unforgettable character to Istanbul and its cityscape,standing out in the overall view of the buildings on either side of the Bosporus and the Golden Horn.Sinan is one of the most important architects of all time.We really should include him in the programmes in our architecture schools and study his work more than we do now.He was a contemporary of Michelangelo and Palladio and for half a century he was behind all of the most important buildings in the Ottoman Empire,either as the designer or the construction supervisor.Edmondo De Amicis and—over a century later—Orhan Pamuk have expressed their thoughts on and from the Bosporus.The ideas of one are reflected in those of the other,with both discussing the multicultural,multiethnic dimension of this exceptional place.De Amicis does it in a piece of correspondence from the Galata Bridge,Pamuk in a rêverie that describes his thoughts and fantasies as a child.One observes people,the other observes things.Edmondo De Amicis tells us how,observing the flow of people on the Galata Bridge going back and forth from one side of the Bosporus to the other,it was possible to pick up whether they came from the countries of the West or the East.Even though they were all part of the Ottoman Empire,there were different,distinguishing physical characteristics,ways of communicating either verbally or by their habits,and features in all of the baggage with them.He saw it as a multicoloured,multiethnic caravanserai;an extraordinary combination of peoples,cultures,religions,usages and customs,involving non-stop coming and going.
In a short piece at the end of the catalogue for the"De Byzance à Istanbul_Un port pour deux continents"exhibition,Pamuk tells us how he looked at a Pasabahçe—one of the last of the old steamboats that have been crossing the Bosporus for over fifty years—and was reminded of his feelings as a child as he gradually came closer to the coast,challenging himself to pick out a familiar sight,a distinctive feature of something with which he identified among the plethora of buildings on the chaotic front of the city on the Bosporus,full of roads,large advertising boards and millions of windows.This description of the child's eagerness to recognize his own house or a reassuring identifying feature is a metaphor for the diversity in uniqueness,expressed in poetic form.This is a characteristic of the Mediterranean itself,whose very name means ‘in between two lands’.This new definition appeared for the first time in the 7th century AD,following the Islamic conquest of the entire African coast and part of the Iberian peninsula,causing the Roman name Mare Nostrum to fall by the wayside for good.
The Mediterranean is just how Fernand Braudel described it:"…A thousand things at once …It is not a civilization but a series of civilizations stacked on top of each other.Travelling in the Mediterranean means coming across the Roman world in Lebanon,prehistory in Sardinia,Greek cities in Sicily,the Arab presence in Spain and Turkish Islam in Yugoslavia.It means plummeting through the abyss of the centuries,as far as the megalithic constructions of Malta or the pyramids of Egypt …the Mediterranean is an extremely ancient crossroads.For millennia everything has been converging there,complicating and enriching its history:beasts of burden,carriages,goods,ships,ideas,religions,lifestyles.And plants.You think that they are Mediterranean and yet—with the exception of olive trees,grapevines and wheat,which are native and established themselves extremely early on—almost all of them originated far from the sea …Those golden fruits among the dark green leaves of certain trees—oranges,lemons,mandarins…— come from the Far East and were introduced by the Arabs …agave,aloe,and prickly pears …come from America …the big trees …which even have a Greek name,eucalyptus …come from Australia …and cypress trees are Persian.Nonetheless,these elements have become constituent parts of the Mediterranean landscape …in its physical landscape,as in its human one,the Mediterranean is a crossroads.In our memories,the irregular Mediterranean becomes a coherent image,a system in which everything blends and reforms in an original unit."
We are trying to understand the Design from the area that looks out on the Mediterranean from the South:another Mediterranean where a large number of differences come together to make a single whole and another Design which expresses a creative dimension with roots in the traditions of a culture dating back thousands of years,in the areas of the Middle East near the sea and the regions of Africa.
Its products,with their mixture of old and new customs,reach as far as the European areas of the Mediterranean.A web with a thousand invisible threads holds together,in a single entity,usages that connect places which are different and distant from each other.
There are many examples.One is anise spirits,which are interesting because the route to their widespread success was through the ports of cities on the Mediterranean.The aroma and flavour are shared by a number of spirits with different names and characteristics:Tutone in Sicily,Pastis in France,Raki in Turkey,Ouzo in Greece,Arak in the Middle East and Sambuca in Italy.It is no coincidence that the name of this last spirit comes from the Arabic term Zammut,as they used to call an anise-based drink that would"dock"in the port of Civitavecchia on ships from the East.
Another example is provided by the spread and development of ceramics production in the Mediterranean basin,starting with the ancient Iznik ware that decorated the great architectural works of the Byzantine Empire and then the Ottoman one,with manufacturing techniques,forms and decorative colours that have descendents ranging from Vietri ceramics to Portuguese Azulejos.
The culture of this alternative Mediterranean has also been a source of inspiration for the contemporary European art scene,which revives figurative materials from the culture of the other Mediterranean,letting itself be influenced by symbolic and expressive worlds,in order to portray new forms and figurative scenarios.Paul Klee,a leading contemporary painter and one of the outstanding teachers at the Bauhaus,is a fine case in point.His multiple visits to Egypt and Tunisia influenced the colours and their equilibrium in his painting,as well as the composition of the shapes;the visual experience of those lands is clear and significant,even though it is altered by abstract methods and processes.
There is a Design scene in the countries on the southern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean that expresses itself in the engagement between tradition and aspirations for innovation.Rather than appearing in the use of complex high technology,product performance or manufacturing systems,this innovation involves reworking forms and using new materials,especially regarding textiles and their use.Indeed,there is no shortage of successful fashion designers,such as the Turkish Cypriot Hussein Chalayan,who carries out extraordinary experiments and innovation.Other examples are Soumiya Jalal,a textiles designer who lives and works in Morocco,and further to the East the Turkish designer Aziz Sariyer,also known as the founder of Derin.In addition,there are companies like VitrA,whose business ventures have taken it from a nerve centre of the Mediterranean all over the globe.However,there is also innovation that represents the desire to contemplate the future with new ideas,providing a form of expression for the various lands that look out onto the alternative Mediterranean,where local design goes head to head with globalization,albeit with some contradictions and many differences between the countries.
popular design ＞ Spreading the word about design culture not only improves product quality,but also our own quality of life.
Several European countries,for instance in Northern Europe,are excellent examples.
In these countries where design is part of their collective cultural heritage,the characteristics of industrial products lead to widespread quality in public design,interior design and in our everyday life.
Design culture is interpreted not only by famous professionals who have created high quality products such as Arne Jacobsen or Alvar Aalto,but also by many designers who satisfy the public's widespread demand for quality design.This design gives an added value to everyday products:in public urban areas,in homes,offices,schools and caring facilities.It's no accident that the popular design produced by IKEA was created in the north of Europe.
aestheticising ＞ In the past,ornaments have been considered either as organically linked to the technical and functional traits of an object which gave it a certain aesthetic quality—albeit with its own artistic specificity—or as something added to its shape and function,like a crust.In his book，"Ornament and Crime"，written in 1908，Adolf Loos maintained that cultural and social evolution required ornament to be excluded from functional objects and architecture.
The completely divergent theories by Ruskin,Riegl or Focillon are just as famous:Ruskin tended to give decoration an aesthetic dimension and believed that function and technical conformation merely played a utilitarian role.Riegl and Focillon,on the other hand,considered that decoration either coincided with form and artistic workmanship(insofar as they represent man's aspiration to shape space and everyday objects)or with specific narrative principles.
It's true that man has always expressed his desire to embellish the space he lives in,either on objects or his own body.
Balance and symmetry were the primordial rules that governed body ornamentation either through painting,tattoos or even scars.This is true whether decoration is inspired by a mimetic relationship with visible natural forms or whether it is abstractly expressed through geometric patterns.
"Beautification"of the human body is one of man's oldest customs:he either decorated his own body or wore jewellery.In both cases,ornaments were intended to aesthetically set off or enhance a person's natural features and emphasise differences in customs,sex,ethnicity,social hierarchy and age.Beautification is obvious and deliberate;painting and ornament by incision are often executed jointly on the same body.They are used to represent the concept of ornament are a(permanent)part of the human body,as well as the concept of ornament as an ephemeral accessory yet with its own built-in aesthetics.In both cases,it figuratively represents initiation rites,sexual,social and magical symbols.
Other decorative traits involve the deformation or mutilation of the human body,for instance,ornaments in earlobes,labial discs or the cutting or filing of teeth.In short,the artificial transformation of the human body in order to portray a person by changing his natural appearance.Of course,beautification is not only inspired by aesthetics:symbols can represent a person's social hierarchy or his tribal affiliation,a time of life such as puberty before marriage or adulthood,proudly represented by scars.Colour symbolism is also important in pictorial decoration;this invests the ornament with a series of elaborate artistic traditions which may include:intricate geometric patterns(inspired by decorative mythological styles);red and white ochre zigzag patterns;marks arithmetically arranged in order to affirm magical/apotropaici symbolic values;zoomorphic patterns with broken lines;diagonal hachure interspersed with herringbone patterns.
Different methods or techniques are employed to embellish the human body without using ornaments but with prostheses.The latter are used mainly to reshape the bodily symbols of sexuality based on aesthetic principles that tend to homologate beauty and decoration and are inspired by the myth of eternal youth.
Lately these techniques are becoming increasingly innovative in order to conceal what is done and make it invisible.Depending on the relationship between decoration,the materials and technique,when ornaments are used by artisans,their plastic effects and stylistic intensity can either create close links with its structural and functional parts or a superimposition,a plasticity that is secondary compared to the product's formal,technical and structural characteristics.
Instead,when an artefact is mass produced industrially with specific manufacturing methods(casting,pressure die casting,rotational dies,etc.)，decoration becomes part of the object's basic shape and coincide with its aesthetics.Not only when the object's surface is devoid of those typical decorative patterns such as modelled pieces,engravings,notches,but also when ornate decorations are present on flat surfaces as well as on concave and convex surfaces or surfaces created by three-dimensional shapes.
no-name ＞ How often have we tarried in front of the windows of big shopping centres and looked at the huge"display"and range of work tools like nails,screws,hooks,hinges,pliers,bottles of glue or electric switches? Or other time-honoured objects whose elementary functions—use,technology,physical and mechanical principles—have not made them obsolete,such as scissors,nail clippers,clothes pegs and hangers,hair pins,staplers,brushes,combs,razors,sponges,soap,etc.?
Objects with an anonymous design destined for mass consumption and distributed without the help of advertisements.Objects that invade the scenario of the artificial with ostensible discretion,but which in fact play a major role in polluting the quality around us.We're reassured by the fact we're so familiar with how they work and their often unchanged shape or packaging.Or we're curious about the invaluable improvement in their technical performance that apparently doesn't radically alter their shape,but does affect their technical traits(increased resistance,longer life,greater safety which,from time to time,gives rise to different formal characteristics)or the type of materials used.
the flow of products ＞ A designer has much more freedom when he designs and produces an industrial product than when he designs and produces a building or a city district,i.e.the context in which the object will be used.An industrial product is atopical:it is designed to be mass-produced and isn't linked to any particular place.It is intended to be used by anyone in the world.Instead,an architecture or an urban element are rooted to the site and interpret its nature.However,a network of relationships if established between an object and its context-considered respectively as an industrial artefact and constructed space:it is these relationships that need to be critically assessed.I believe that it is these intricate relationships between space and the flow of products that pass through it that provides us with an interpretative key to our modern world.
When you design an architecture or part of a city,you fulfil a mandate;you are limited by a budget and by the fact that the site has to accommodate traditional buildings such as schools,churches,the town hall,offices,theatres and houses.
At urban and territorial level,these limits are dictated by the relationship between residential buildings,facilities,industries and infrastructure systems.In short,the budget,the site,the typologies and the models are the building blocks that the designer uses based on his own technical skills:the project renews what already exists and proposes what is plausible.
Vice versa,when you design an industrial product,the functional characteristics of the object are all-important,as are the production methods,the evaluation of the intrinsic possibilities made available by contemporary science and techniques to improve the qualities of the product and earn a bigger market share.The logic of industrial production is to always offer an object before there is a formal demand by the user.It also involves inventing the necessary technologies and production methods:an industrial design project proposes what doesn't exist.
cultural complexity ＞ As democracy is gradually established in the so-called"developing countries"，design is experiencing an experimentation that few had foreseen.After all,in recent years the growth rate of the GDP of these countries is,on average,much greater than that of European Member States.
This is quite common in Asia(in the first place,China and India)，but it is also fairly widespread in Latin American countries despite the recent economic crisis that has involved some areas of the continent.It would be interesting to analyse this phenomenon from a political,economic,social and cultural point of view,but instead we have decided to focus on how this affects contemporary design in Latin America.By design,we mean the ability to invent and manufacture what is artificial,in other words,all the material and immaterial artefacts that are produced to satisfy both the demands of yesterday and today.
Creating Mercosur was a way to establish a common market in this vast area known as Latin America,but this continent is a mixture of very different cultures,traditions,economies and even languages(Spanish and Portuguese).When we analysed the range of design styles spread across this huge geographical area,we found that diversity and identity were certainly the most interesting issues to explore.
The influence of the European model in the field of design—as in other cultural fields—is very dominant in Latin America.However,interest in autochthonous forms of expression is growing by the minute.In fact,increasingly,experiments and productive activities are picking up on local traditions and the cultural complexity of Latin America,even if globalisation remains an omnipresent presence.
The Ulm teaching method has affected—and in some cases still affects—the way in which designers are trained in schools in Latin America,for instance at the School of Industrial Design(ESDI)founded in 1964 in Rio de Janeiro.
This influence has provided method and discipline but it has also created a design concept based on the ethics and style of modernity;this has influenced training programmes,but hasn't changed the specific demands of the local market or the need for enterprises for create an ad-hoc growth model.It wouldn't be wrong to say that the delay in technological and scientific development in countries in South America hasn't helped.
Perhaps it's this common reference to the European tradition of design that's the glue behind the identity of the whole continent.Its matrix has gradually become"hybrid，"perhaps due to the influence of local culture in the world-wide globalisation process as well as the changes in Latin American countries that began in the eighties and have continued ever since.These changes include the revival and reinforcement of the full potential of the continent's traditions and culture that have finally exploded in a burst of creative independence,the true expression of all the peoples of South America.
On the other hand,the multicultural and multiethnic traits of the continent,the seamless borders between the countries—like the market that seems to come together in Mercosur—and the lightening speed with which communications,social phenomena and cultural styles travel from one environment to another,means that diversity and identity tend to gel in"hybrid"forms.
In any case,the connection between the design of new objects and tradition is now permeated by the interesting,elegant method of functional transfer,i.e.an exchange of the typically material characteristics of a product from one type to another.So the traits of a new product for the workplace inspire new health products for domestic consumption;the characteristics of objects traditionally used in the market,commerce or religious ceremonies are transferred to everyday objects used in the public areas of our cities.Rarely does this produce vernacular objects because in general there is a tendency to reinvent and not to repropose.It doesn't just involve reproducing objects,shapes or materials that are typical of local craftsmanship;it's more a refined,cultured and ironic reinterpretation of tradition and history.Transfer is also fully exploited in style and formal research:the colours of a crowd during a procession,in a marketplace,natural materials,traditional costumes,etc.，are transferred into the new objects.Geometrical designs and the decorative forms of ancient iconography are used as reference in these new proposals.
Another characteristic element of the design approach in Latin America,or at least in the countries with the highest growth in GDP,is self-production.This is extremely interesting because it's an identity factor that in fact preserves and produces diversity.Its diversity lies in the product,in its link to the history,culture and materials that belong to the various contextual geographical,economic and social conditions;its identity in the method:i.e.self-production.A system rooted in tradition;one that goes further yet never involves the production processes that have historically determined the growth of advanced industrial models based on large-scale production for a single,globalised market.In fact,to produce what he designs,to produce it with the materials,technologies and tools at his disposal,the designer becomes an entrepreneur.However,he does all this for a market that basically limits the number of pieces to be produced and allows the designer to dream up new ideas for new products,in other words to be at the centre of a virtuous circular system that continually solicits him for new ideas.This sets him apart from both traditional craftsmen who use age-old manufacturing techniques and product types as well as from industrial production where parts of the process(design,production,commercialisation,etc.)are very specific and are carried out by different actors.Self-production has teamed up with the use of recycled materials.This is a widespread trend and the Campana brothers are certainly the forerunners of a research that has led the field;so much so,that young groups such as the Notechdesign have adopted it as the manifesto of their design work.It's an interesting research that recuperates the homo faber dimension of designers,their manual skills,inventiveness and creativity.Quite apart from its symbolic meaning vis-à-vis eco-efficiency,it often gives the product an artistic dimension,a knack at involving all five senses.
Self-production is certainly controversial.Many consider it postpones the creation of national industrial systems or their ability to measure up to industrially advanced countries in the field of competition and innovation.
However,the experimentation in design in Latin America is undoubtedly original and innovative;it includes the design of products,fashion,graphics,visual communications and interior design.
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