UNDICESIMA TRIENNALE
Agnoldomenico Pica [Editor], Franco Grignani [Designer]
Agnoldomenico Pica [Editor], Franco Grignani [Designer]: UNDICESIMA TRIENNALE. Milan: Vigano, October1957. First edition. Italian text with summary & picture titles in English. Quarto. Cream cloth decorated in black and yellow. 365 [64] pp. Multiple paper stocks. 369 black and white and 19 color photographs and 47 architectural plans, elevations, and landscaping diagrams. Cloth lightly soiled and stained. Foxing early and late. Textblock edges uniformly sunned. Mild tackiness to a few leaves, due to heavy ink coverage. Designed by Franco Grignani. Way out-of-print and never reissued in any format. A nice copy of this legendary (and easily-abused) volume: a very good copy.
8.5 x 11.25 hardcover book with 365 pages and 369 finely-printed black and white and 19 color photographs and 47 architectural plans, elevations, and landscaping diagrams. In addition, there are 64 full-page (many in color) advertisements for Italian manufacturers at the back of the book. Italian text with summary & picture titles in English. There is also "A Shorter Guide in English" at the back of the book before the indices. One of the most significant tiles documenting the mid-century design movement.
This volume is the comprehensive published record of the Milan Triennale Exposition of 1957. The primary essays are in Italian, BUT each object shown is accompanied by descriptive captions in both English and Italian. The usefulness of this book as a reference volume cannot be overstated.
The book covers all modern media from every country that participated in the Triennale, including Italy, the United States, Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium and many others.
Areas covered in great depth include modern ceramics, modern glass, furniture, lighting, metalwork, textiles, jewelry, graphics, interior design, automobiles and more. This volume contains detailed descriptions of the 1957 Triennale's physical layout, as well as historical information about the Triennale Exposition.
The most important text is devoted to each of the designers and manufacturers represented at this historic modernist gathering. The text includes lengthy descriptions of such icons as Gio Ponti, Stig Lindberg, Charles Eames, Ettore Sottsass, Salvatore Meli, Marcello Fantoni, Guido Gambone, Carlo Mollino, Ercole Barovier, Paolo Venini, Flavio Poli, Gino Sarfatti, Sven Palmquist, Sigurd Persson, Nils Landberg, Vicke Lindstrand, Arne Jacobsen, Finn Juhl, A. D. Copier, Timo Sarpaneva, Paolo de Poli, Lino Sabattini, Eliot Noyes, Walter Dorwin Teague, Kay Bojesen, Sori Yanagi, Franco Albini, Sergio Asti, Osvaldo Borsani, Achille Castiglioni, Bruno Munari, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Bruno Munari, Carlo Scarpa, Marco Zanuso and many others.
The Milan Triennial Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Modern Architecture (La Triennale di Milano) was established in Monza in 1923 as the first Biennial of Decorative Arts. The Biennial outgrew its place as a regional showcase and developed an international standing after becoming a triennial in 1930. Created as a showcase for modern decorative and industrial arts, with the aim of stimulating relations among the industry, production sectors and applied arts, La Triennale di Milano became the main Italian event for promoting architecture, visual and decorative arts, design, fashion and audio/video production. Since 1933 the Triennale has been located in Milan in the Palazzo dell’Arte.
The Triennali of the 1950s and 1960s generated critical attention and fierce debate until 1968 when the 14th Triennale was brought to an early end by student demonstrators. This manifestation of the volatility of political and social events in many ways echoed the increasingly fragile complexities of the Italian design world. Thereafter the Triennali ceased to play such a central role in design research, rhetoric, and relevance.
Milan Triennial Exhibitions recognized by the BIE took place in: 1933, 1936, 1940, 1947, 1951, 1954, 1957, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1988, 1991, and 1996.
In that year the Triennale not only showed the work of innovative young Rationalist designers Figini and Pollini in the Electric House but also work from abroad. This included contributions from the Berlin Werkbund and the Dessau Bauhaus, as well as furniture by Mies Van Der Rohe and electrical products by AEG and Siemens. In 1933 the 5th Triennale moved to the newly built Palazzo d'Arte by Giovanni Muzio in Milan. As well as an exhibition devoted to the Futurist visionary architect Antonio Sant'Elia, the prototype of the Breda ETR 200 electric express train designed by Giuseppe Pagano and Gio Ponti was exhibited as were photographs of Ciam architectural design by Le Corbusier, Gropius, and Mies Van Der Rohe. Amongst the Italian designs at the 6th Triennale of 1936 was a Modernist dwelling by Gio Ponti and the Salone della Vittoria by Edouardo Persico, Marcello Nizzoli, and others where an acknowledgement of the classicism of Mussolini's ‘Roma Secunda’ sat uneasily with the avant-garde leanings of Rationalism. Amongst progressive work from abroad was glass design by the Finnish designer Aino Aalto, who won a Gold Medal, as well as the birchwood Modernist furniture of her husband Alvar.
The 1940 Triennale came to a premature end with Italy's involvement in the Second World War. After the war the Triennali resumed in 1947, an exhibition largely devoted to housing and reconstruction: including contributions by Ettore Sottsass, Vico Magistretti, and others. At the 1951 Triennale attention was devoted to ‘The Form of the Useful’ in a display organized by Ludovico Bellgoioso and Enrico Peressutti. Such a focus on industrial aesthetics gave rise to feelings that gathered strength in the 1950s, namely that the social and economic dimensions of design were underplayed at the expense of the quest for style. Nonetheless, much experimentation was evident in the exploration of the aesthetic possibilities of foam rubber furniture, organic form, and the ‘rediscovery’ of craft traditions as a stimulus to innovative work in a number of fields. Designers such as Franco Albini, Achille and Piergiacomo Castiglione, Carlo Mollino, and Marco Zanuso did much to suggest the high profile of Italian design in the following decades. Also prominent was the work of Tapio Wirkkala, who designed the critically acclaimed Finnish display. Indeed, Scandinavian design generally featured significantly in the shows of the 1950s. During that and the following decade the Triennali of the 1950s and 1960s continued to elicit critical attention and often fierce debate until 1968 when the 14th Triennale was brought to an early end by student demonstrators. This manifestation of the volatility of political and social events in many ways echoed the increasingly fragile complexities of the Italian design world. Thereafter the Triennali ceased to play such a central role in design research, rhetoric, and relevance.