73471 - History of Industrial Design T-II

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the student will know the history of design culture on the scale of the object and, from an historical and critical point of view, the main themes of the design culture related to the production of objects. The chronological period goes from the middle of the last century up to today, with particular attention to the relationship with the history of techniques connected with the project, with the history of contemporary architecture and its languages, with the history of art.

Course contents

New techniques and new languages between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century

Introduction to the course and basic concepts. Crystal Palace: design of the machines, components and exhibits

Arts and Crafts. Henry Cole. William Morris. Hermann Muthesius. Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Art Nouveau in Belgium and France: Victor Horta, Henry van de Velde, Hector Guimard

The Secession and the Wiener Werkstaette (Otto Wagner, Olbrich, Hoffmann)

The project of the daily object in the industrial revolution. The anonymous design. Wedgwood and Thonet

The Germany of the Deutscher Werkbund (Behrens, AEG, 1909) and the Cologne Exhibition (1914)

America: Frank Ll. Wright and Streamline

 

The different souls of European rationalism

Gropius and the Bauhaus

Le Corbusier

The manifesto of modern living: Mies Van der Rohe, the Weissenhof Siedlung (1927) and the Frankfurter kitchen

The other culture of modernity: Loos, Mallet-Stevens and Chareau

Women designer: Eileen Gray and Charlotte Perriand

Alvar Aalto and Artek

 

Design in Italy: new rituals and new myths

Italian culture during fascism: Ponti, Lancia, Portaluppi. Gio Ponti from ceramics to the Superleggera

The Olivetti utopia and the beginnings of Italian design. The electric house at the IV Triennale

The "gold compass" and the success of Italian design. The post-war periods. Reflections on the design of the economic boom. The many possible options of taste

The new Italian museography: Albini, BBPR, Scarpa

The Made in Italy house: Azucena, Poggi, Arflex and the Dino Gavina phenomenon

The Castiglioni, Joe Colombo, Zanuso, Sapper and the new appliances. New materials and plastics

The 1968 movement. Sottsass, Mendini, Alchimia Group and Memphis

Design for children and for the game. Bruno Munari

 

The second post-war period

Wartime design. New materials and new forms

The "model house" and the apartment-type for the Reconstruction (Perret in Le Havre). Quick emergency houses. Jean Prouvé

The second post-war period: the renewal and complexity of the forms of the 1950s; Eames, Saarinen, etc.

Utopias and neo-avant-gardes: Archigram, Metabolism and the culture of the 1960s

The 70s and 80s, the postmodern (the Alessi case), the houses at the Triennale, the exhibition at MOMA, the domestic project

 

Contemporary panorama

Oriental design. The Japanese case

Specific cases: Design and restoration

Contemporary and current trends: deconstructivism, minimalism, etc. Contaminations between space and object. New female faces

Renzo Piano and the project for assembled components. Natural light and artificial light

Readings/Bibliography

The student will use one of the following manuals:

• Gabriella D’Amato, Storia del design, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2005
• Renato De Fusco, Storia del design, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2002

For further details, some more texts are recommended:

• Matteo Vercelloni, Breve storia del design italiano, Carocci, Roma, 2008
• Maurizio Vitta, Il progetto della bellezza. Il design fra arte e tecnica dal 1851 a oggi, Einaudi, Torino 2011 (I ed. 2001)

Teaching methods

Lectures and seminars.

Assessment methods

Oral exam
The exam consists of an interview on the totality of the topics of the lessons and contents of the bibliography. During the exam, the student is required to describe design objets, movements and figures, to establish thematic links, to draw an explanatory sketch (plan, elevation, section, details, etc...) of the main works presented in class and to recognise and analyse some images from the lectures.

Teaching tools

Students will receive the images projected during the lessons in pdf format.

Office hours

See the website of Silvia Berselli

See the website of Maria Beatrice Bettazzi