ARTE DECORATIVA ITALIA
[Quaderni della Triennale]
Giuseppe Pagano
Milano: Ulrico Hoepli Editore, July 1938. First edition. Text in Italian. Square quarto. Printed card wrappers. 142 pp. 131 black and white plates and 12 text illustrations. Classic example of fascist graphic design and typography with immaculate letterpress printing throughout. Wrappers sunned to edges and spine darkened and chipped to crown and heel, but a very good copy.
8.125 x 8.375 card covered first edition with 36 pages of introductory text followed by 131 black and white illustrations masterfully assembled and laid out with the most up-to-date—circa 1938— fascist mise-en-page and typesetting. A superb adjunct publication from Ulrico Hoepli Editore, highlighting the decorative arts shown at the 1936 Milan Triennial Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Modern Architecture.
Contents:
- Prefazione e testo descrittivo di Giuseppe Pagano
- Illustrazioni
- Indice alfabetico degli artisti e dei collaborativi
- Indice alfabetico della opere per materia
Includes work by Piero Fornasetti, Lucio Fontana, Bruno Munari, Constantino Nivola, Marcello Nizolli, Flavio Poli, Mario Radice, Ernesto Rogers, Luigi Veronesi, Gabriele Mucchi, Edina Altara, Guido Andlovitz, Lina Aspesani, Nicola Arrighini, Gian Luigi Banfi, Editgio Barlondi, Ludovico Belgioioso Alberto Bevelacqua, Angelo Biancini, Bramante Buffoni, Giusti Buzzoni, Corrado Cagli, Ettore Calvelli, Arnaldo Carpanetti, Carlo Carra, Felcie Casaroti, Rodolfo Castagnino, Tullio D’albisola, Adriano Di Spilimbergo, Salvatore Fancello, Industria Ceramica Salernitana,Leone Lodi, Giacomo Manzu, Arturo Martini, Pietro Melandri, Ferruccio Morandini, Enzo Morelli, Enrico Peressutti, Emanuele Rambaldi, Mario Sironi, Nino Strada, Giuseppe Ursi, 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.