Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Design
Better living by design: what could be more Milanese? From the cup that holds your morn-
ing espresso to the bedside light you switch off before you go to sleep, there's a designer
responsible, and almost everyone in Milan will know their name. Design here is a way of
life.
Modern Italian Design
Italy's design roots are in 1930s Milan, with the opening of the Triennale, the founding of
Domus
and
Casabella
magazines, Rinascente's visionary commissions (Giorgio Armani
started as window dresser here) and the development of the Fiera. Where elaborate French
rococo and ornate Austrian art nouveau had captured the imagination of a genteel
pre-world war Europe, the dynamic deco style of Italian Futurism was a perfect partner for
the industrial revolution and thrusting Fascist philosophies.
Like cogs in a political wheel, Fascist propaganda co-opted the radical, neoclassical
streamlining that Futurism inspired and put it to work in posters, architecture, furniture and
design. Modern factories were needed to aid the war effort and Fascist tendencies to hier-
archical organisation and centralised control boosted Italian manufacturing. Through an in-
herent eye for purity of line, modern Italian design found beauty in balance and symmetry.
This refreshing lack of detail appealed greatly to a fiercely democratising war-torn Europe
where minimalism and utility came to represent the very essence of modernity.
After WWII, the military industrial complexes in Turin and Milan became the
centrepieces of a new, global consumer-centric economy. Turin's strength was industrial
design, from Lavazza espresso machines to the Fiat 500 car; Milan focused on fashion and
home decor. Italian films and pioneering magazines such as
Domus
showcased these newly
mass-produced design objects, making them seem both desirable and, more importantly, at-
tainable.
Alessi's famous bird-whistle kettle designer, American Michael Graves, once received a postcard from a
French poet, who wrote, 'I'm always very grumpy when I get up in the morning. But when I get up now, I
put the teakettle on, and when it starts to sing it makes me smile - goddamn you!' More than just a kettle,
it captured the public imagination and is still sold in its millions today.
