Artisans from the North of Italy

Without them there would be no Italian Design. They are the silent partner of any designer. They are as passionate about a project as the designer. Each time I went to visit one – above are pictures and video I took – they showed me with pride books and pictures of previous project they worked on. Not only they are skilled craftsmen and know the technology they specialized in inside-out, but also they are experimental, they courageously try things that were never done before, willing to solve problems as they arise. Maybe at first they tell you that it cannot be done but then... they are not able to say no to a challenge!
The majority of the "Made in Italy" is made by their experienced hands, harmoniously mixed with the latest technology. When I visited Poltrona Frau, I saw in the same production line a laser cutting numerical controlled machine to optimize the cut of the leather and manually charged springs, bound by hand, one by one.
Legend says that the Nord of Italy has had all this skilled artisans for generations because the King build his Palace – the Villa Reale – in Monza and he needed a huge amount of furniture for it, so farmers around the Palace - during the quite times of the winter - started to make furniture. Who could have predicted how important this Palace would have been for us?

Shape comes by itself

"If a designer can speak about his project for at least 10 minutes, he made a design, otherwise he made a shape" Mario Bisson, Architect and Professor of "The Languages of Design".

The shape of an object is not the goal of a design, it is a result of the design process and, if the process is well executed, it comes out by itself, effortlessly. Instead, the goal of a design is human innovation: what is enhanced in behaviors, habits, emotions.

The video shows a short version of my 10 minutes speech about a light Philip Mes and I designed for pedestrian areas of the city of Milan.

NOT for your eyes only

What is Italian Design? Better yet, what is design for an Italian (me) who got educated on the subject by an Italian school (the best ;-)) and breathes every day the air (polluted!) of the capital of design - Milan - contributing to create objects that will be (hopefully!) part of the design heritage? This blog is about answering this question.

Let start with a subject most dear to me. An object of design is not only something that is visually and aesthetically pleasing. Since to appreciate an object of design you need to fall in love with it, let's use this example. You can find the most physically attractive girl (or boy) and be deeply attracted to her (or him), but as the time goes by, if there isn't anything else, the attraction disappears and you don't notice the beauty you once saw. Aesthetically pleasing do exist, but it is temporary and it is subjected to trends. This is not design. It is style and fashion.

Having said that, an object of design needs to be visually pleasing, even if this is not an easy requirement to verify because it is highly subjective. A fundamental requirement of an object of design (note that this could be a physical object, as well as a place, physical or virtually interactive) is having an identity: it is consistent with its concept, it has a purpose, and it communicates a message, intellectually and emotionally.