Made in Italy: Rethinking a Century of Italian Design

by Grace Lees-Maffei (Editor), Kjetil Fallan (Editor)

Overview

Goods made or designed in Italy enjoy a profile which far outstrips the country's modest manufacturing output. Italy's glorious design heritage and reputation for style and innovation has 'added value' to products made in Italy. Since 1945, Italian design has commanded an increasing amount of attention from design jourbanalists, critics and consumers. But is Italian design a victim of its own celebrity? Made in Italy brings together leading design historians to explore this question, discussing both the history and significance of design from Italy and its international influence. Addressing a wide range of Italian design fields, including car design, graphic design, industrial and interior design and ceramics, well-known designers such as Alberto Rosselli and Ettore Sottsass, Jr. and iconic brands such as Olivetti, Vespa and Alessi, the book explores the historical, cultural and social influences that shaped Italian design, and how these iconic designs have contributed to the modern canon of Italian-inspired goods.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780857853899
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/16/2014
Edition description:	UK ed.
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Grace Lees-Maffei is reader in Design History and TVAD Research Group co-ordinator at the University of Hertfordshire and managing editor of the Jourbanal of Design History. She is the editor of Writing Design: Words and Objects (Bloomsbury Academic, 2011) and Iconic Designs: 50 Stories about 50 Things (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), and co-editor of The Design History Reader (Bloomsbury Academic, 2010). She is also author of Design at Home (2013).

Kjetil Fallan is associate professor of Design History at the University of Oslo. He is the author of Design History: Understanding Theory and Method (Bloomsbury Academic, 2010) and the editor of Scandinavian Design: Alternative Histories (Bloomsbury Academic, 2012) and is also an editor of the Jourbanal of Design History.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The History of Italian Design, Kjetil Fallan, University of Oslo, Norway, and Grace Lees-Maffei, University of Hertfordshire, UK

1. A Historiography of Italian Design, Maddalena Dalla Mura, Libera Università di Bolzano, Italy, and Carlo Vinti, Università degli Studi di Camerino, Italy

PART 1: ACTORS
2. Ettore Sottsass and Critical Design in Italy, 1965-1985, Penny Sparke, Kingston University, UK
3. Domes to Domus (or how Roberto Mango brought the geodesic dome to the home of Italian design), Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Harvard University, USA
4. Tomás Maldonado and the Impact of the HfG Ulm in Italy, Raimonda Riccini, Università Iuav di Venezia, Italy

PART 2: CRAFTS
5. Craft, Industry and Art: ISIA (1922-1943) and the Roots of Italian Design Education, Elena Dellapiana, Politecnico di Torino, Italy, and Daniela Prina, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
6. Manufactured Identities: Ceramics and the Making of (Made in) Italy, Lisa Hockemeyer, Politecnico di Milano, Italy, and Kingston University, UK
7. Crafting a Design Counterculture: the Pastoral and the Primitive in Italian Radical Design, 1972–1976, Catharine Rossi, Kingston University, UK

PART 3: SPACES
8. Private Exhibitions: Galleries, Art and Interior Design, 1920-1960, Imma Forino, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
9. Exhibiting Exhibitions: Designing and Displaying Fascism, Vanessa Rocco, Southern New Hampshire University, USA
10. This Way to the Exit: The Re-Writing of the City through Graphic Design (1964-1989), Gabriele Oropallo, University of Oslo, Norway

PART 4: INDUSTRIES
11. Designing a New Society: A Social History of Italian Car Design, Federico Paolini, Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli, Italy
12. Espresso by Design: The Creation of the Italian Coffee Machine, Jonathan Morris, University of Hertfordshire, UK
13. Italian Fashion: The Metamorphosis of a Cultural Industry, Simona Segre Reinach, Università di Bologna, Italy

PART 5: MEDIATIONS
14. Annus Mirabilis: 1954, Alberto Rosselli and the Institutionalization of Design Mediation, Kjetil Fallan, University of Oslo, Norway
15. A Vehicle for 'Good Italians': User Design and the Vespa Clubs in Italy, Thomas Brandt, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
16. 'Made' in England? The Mediation of Alessi S.p.A., Grace Lees-Maffei, University of Hertfordshire, UK

Notes on Contributors
List of Illustrations
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Made in Italy is an original attempt to address the issue of 'Rethinking a Century of Italian Design'.” —Vanni Pasca, Associazione Italiana degli Storici del Design, Italy, The Jourbanal of Design History

“Made in Italy investigates the celebrated history of industrial design in modern Italy. It examines what makes an object Italian in a world characterized by increasingly interconnected production, marketing, and consumption networks…The book does several things well: it describes the complex synthesis of regional, national, and international influences that have combined to affect how Italian design is understood; brings attention to the influence of craft on Italian design history; and offers an extensive, up-to-date bibliography. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers.” —A. R. Michelson, University of Washington Libraries, CHOICE

“Made in Italy offers a multi-faceted picture of how the fiction of the nation has been edited and rewritten over the course of the 20th century in the service of yet another enduring fiction-one based on both the facts and myths of Italian design. This carefully curated collection of essays asks us to understand that the relationship between geography and design is, and was, never contained in a map but something far less stable-culture.” —Susan Yelavich, Parsons The New School for Design, USA

From the Publisher

Made in Italy investigates the celebrated history of industrial design in modern Italy. It examines what makes an object Italian in a world characterized by increasingly interconnected production, marketing, and consumption networks…The book does several things well: it describes the complex synthesis of regional, national, and international influences that have combined to affect how Italian design is understood; brings attention to the influence of craft on Italian design history; and offers an extensive, up-to-date bibliography. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers.

A. R. Michelson