ITALY: THE NEW DOMESTIC LANDSCAPE
ACHIEVEMENTS AND PROBLEMS OF ITALIAN DESIGN
Emilio Ambasz
Emilio Ambasz: ITALY: THE NEW DOMESTIC LANDSCAPE. ACHIEVEMENTS AND PROBLEMS OF ITALIAN DESIGN. New York: Museum of Modern Art, New York, in association with Centro Di, Florence. 1972. First edition. Quarto. Paper covered boards decorated in black. Printed glassine dust jacket. 432 pp. 400 back and white illustrations and 120 in color. Four pieces of cut-out furniture inserted into jacket as issued—the Heller Vignelli plastic plates are missing. Glassine jacket spine age-darkened (as usual) and spotted. Some of this spotting has transferred onto the white boards. Board edges spotted. A very unusual, beautiful volume, rarely found in collectible condition. A very good hardcover copy with a very good glassine jacket.
8 x 10 book, with 432 pages, 520 illustrations (120 in color). Includes the famous glassine dust jacket with color cardboard cutouts of an Asteroide by Sottsass, the famous "pill lamps," and the Gufram "blades of grass" chair. Published by the Museum of Modern Art (in association with the Centro Di of Florence, Italy) to coincide with the exhibition (May 26 - September 11, 1972). This is the first book to survey the important design developements in Italy. The Museum commissioned 12 environments especially for the exhibition, covering two modes of contemporary living; permanent home and the mobile home, using 180 objects produced in Italy during the decade by more than 100 designers, including examples of product design, furniture, lighting, appliances, flatware and china. These are accomapanied by more than a dozen essays by major design critics and historians.
From the book: "...This publication, issued in conjunction with a major exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, is the first to deal comprehensively with these challenging developments. Over 150 objects of Italian design of the past ten years have been selected for the show and are all reproduced in color or black-and-white, as are the dozen environments by well-known Italian designers specially commissioned for the occasion, and the two awarded prizes in a concurrent competition for young designers under thirty-five sponsored by the Museum."
A very cool, unusual book.
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Objects Selected for their Formal and Technical Means
- Objects Selected for their Sociocultural Implications
- Objects Selected for their Implications of more Flexible Patterns of Use and Arrangement
- Environments: Introduction
- Design Program
- Design as Postulation: Gae Aulenti, Ettore Sottsass, Joe Colombo, Alberto Rosselli, Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper, Mario Bellini
- Design as Commentary: Gaetano Pesce
- Counterdesign as Postulation: Ugo La Pietra, Archizoom, Superstudio, Gruppo Strum, Enzo Mari
- Winners of the Competition for Young Designers: Gianantonio Mari, Group 9999;
- Historical Articles: Introduction
- Art Nouveau in Italy
- The Futurist Construction of the Universe
- The Beginning of Modern Research, 1930-1940
- Italian Design 1945-1971
- Critical Articles: Introduction
- talian Design in Relation to Social and Economic Planning
- Housing Policy and the Goals of Design in Italy
- Ideological Development in the Thought and Imagery of Italian Design
- The Land of Good Design
- Radical Architecture
- Design and Technological Utopia
- A Design for New Behaviors
- Summary
- Credits
Designers, manufacturers, and artists represented inthis volume include Archizoom, Roberto Arioli, Danilo and Corrado Aroldi, Sergio Asti, Gae Aulenti, Dario and Lucia Bartolini, Giampiero and Giovanni Bassi, Allesandro Becchi, Dario Bellini, Mario Bellini, Giancarlo and Luigi Bicocchi, Carlo Bimbi, Marilena Boccato, Cini Boeri, Rodolfo Bonetto, Andrea Branzi, Cesare Casati, Anna Castelli Ferrieri, Achille Castiglioni, Livio Castiglioni, Pier Giancomo Castiglioni, Umberto Catalano, Franco Cattelan, Giorgio Ceretti, Joe Colombo, Slivio Coppola, Gilberto Corretti, Marcello Cuneo, Pierangela D'Aniello, Giorgio Decursu, Paolo Deganello, Johnathan De Pas, Piero Derossi, Donato D’Urbino, Gianfranco Facchetti, Gianni Ferrara, Piero Frassinelli, Gianfranco Frattini, Ignazio Gardella, Piero Gatti, Gian Nicola Gigante, Piero Gilardi, Nilo Gioacchini, Giuliana Gramigna, Vittorio Gregotti, Group G 14, Gruppo Architetti Urbanisti Città Nuova, Gruppo Sturm, Giancarlo Iliprandi, Internotredici, Angelo Jacober, Hans von Kiler, Ugo La Pietra, Fabio Lenci, Cesare Leonardi, Paolo Lomazzi, Roberto Lucci, Ennio Lucini, Antonio Macchi Cassia, Vico Magistretti, Allesandro and Roberto Magris, Angelo Mangiarotti, Roberto Mango, Pio Manzù, Enzo Mari, Gino Marotta, Gianfranco Masi, Luigi Massoni (Studio BMP), Sebastiano Matta, Giancarlo Mattioli, Sergio Mazza, Lodovico Meneghetti, Roberto Monsani, Massimo Morozzi, Bruno Munari, Adolfo Natalini, Umberto Orsoni, Cesare Paolini, Gianni Pareschi, Eleonore Peduzzi-Riva, Pino Pensotti, Gaetano Pesce, Marcello Pietrantoni, Giancarlo Piretti, Alfredo Pizzo Greco, C. Emanuele Ponzio, Giuseppe Raimondi, Alberto Rosselli, Ricardo Rosso, Alberto Salvati, Roberto Sambonet, Richard Sapper, Gino Sarfatti, Tobia and Afra Scarpa, Alberto Seassaro, Marcello Siard, Giorgio Soavi, Ettore Sottsass, Jr., Franca Stagi, Giotto Stoppino, Studio BMP, Studio OPI, Studio TG, Superstudio, Franco Teodoro, Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, Ambrogio Tresoldi, Roberto Ubaldi, Ufficio Tecnico Snaidero, Gino Valle, Massimo Vignelli, Nanda Vigo, Antonio Zambusi, and Marco Zanuso. [xlist_2018]