The rise of Italian design

-- Wang Xiaoge Compilation

The "Renaissance" phenomenon of Italian design is unthinkable today. In the two centuries before Italy, Italy played a very weak role in the evolution of the modernization movement. After the war, Italy was in a short period of fifteen years. It was reborn from the ruins of the war and occupied the leading position of the Western design community. It is almost completely independent to cultivate some important design masters, manufacturers, and criticize the environment and retail system. This is its guarantee of the leading position in the modern design field in the 20th century. These are great achievements.

1. Italian design miracle

Like many European countries after World War II, Italy needs to rebuild a new economic, political, and cultural society on the ruins of the war. This process achieved results in the 1960s. This is known as the "Italian miracle." This "recovery" marks the return of Italy as a major force to Europe and the Western world.

Scandinavia and the United States were the main leaders of the design since the end of World War II. Italians used their model to rebuild their design industry. In Scandinavia, design is not only seen as a culture but also as an indispensable aspect of the entire economy. Such an attitude will inevitably lead to an extremely important "combination of government, industry, and designers." Another model comes from companies in Scandinavia who combine handicraft and industrial production. This provides designers with a lot of creative space. These two models helped Italy determine the post-World War II industrial design.

The influence of highly industrialized American design groups is completely different; first, the United States has set an important precedent. He transformed the “Modernist Style” that was developed in Europe during the two world wars. The thoughts that emphasized rationality, which used to be firm socialism, were transformed into a democratic, capitalist expression. Be Formalism - Pure visual effects take precedence over theoretical reasonableness and sexuality. The American design also provides another important model for their Italian counterparts: Some major US companies, such as Knoll and Herman Miller, are managed by independent individuals whose vision and imagination affect each of them. Work. They often hire architects and designers as their chief designers, including many important artists such as Eero Saorinen or Charles Eames (they were the first students of the Cranbrook School of Art). U.S. manufacturers have come up with innovative retail technologies. They have developed a "showroom sales" system to launch their products to cater to those who have money. In the 1950s, they had expanded their markets to the international level.

The extraordinary achievements of Italy in the 1960s were based on the "Italian unique quality" feature. Regardless of government, industry, universities, media, or ordinary people, design is treated as Italian art with the most vitality and international influence.

In addition, Italy has developed a system of favorable design criticism that can openly discuss various concepts (usually very sharp) in various media, which makes it possible for Italy to become the center of a new movement with continued vigor. Similarly, the three-year Milan exhibition and other exhibitions, such as salone del mobile, always strive to show the whole country and even the world a new Italian design style.

Unlike Germany or the United States, Italy has historically lacked a strong foundation of research and technology, but his designers have a long tradition of design. With their promotion, "Italian style" has become the most unique connotation in their products. By the 1960s, the Italian style developed mainly by modernist designers and manufacturers was internationally recognized: from clothing to cars. This is described by the famous British design historian Panny Sparke as: simple appearance, colorful materials, superb skills, expressive forms and the use of high-tech means (those technologies often come indirectly). In the 1950s, when the American designer Florence Knoll was influenced by Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe and perfectly demonstrated rigor and elegance, the Italians went further and showed full talent and unparalleled daring in the design of the time. Courage to try. They originally called it "practical plus beautiful."

In the post-war period, there have been some important architects in Italy, but under such unimaginable economic and political conditions, there are only a few opportunities to build a house, while the Italian merchants immediately realized that: Just let the artists As designers, they can give their products a unique look. A coincidence, the result is that in the next forty years, the Italian design industry has continuously emerged a great genius.

The development of Italian design has also been promoted by the national manufacturing industry. After the war, Italy developed a new type of industrial chemical plant, but it also retained some small family workshops. They are both contractors of large factory tasks and also designers of new concept products. This helps Italian manufacturers and designers quickly introduce and introduce new products without investing a lot of money.

2 Controversy between modernism and anti-modernism

The great ideological controversy initiated by Italy made it the center of design at the time in the past thirty years. The struggle that exists between modernism and anti-modernism is not like the style competition in many media. It is more like the struggle between two opposing design ideas.

The birthplace of modernism was not in Italy. It began in the early days of World War I and then it was associated with a number of schools such as Bauhaus in Germany. Early modernist designers were determined to demonstrate a new urbanization and industrialized society. They were early political and design-minded socialists who believed that the primary purpose of industrial design was to serve the mass production of objects for Everyman. These designers use new technologies and industrial materials such as glass and steel. They liked the brisk little form, (in the 1920s were rigorous geometry, some more biological forms in the 1930s), they emphasized the natural characteristics of the material, and did not use decorations and patterns in the production process, against any Antique orientation, in short, modernism inspired by earlier styles such as avant-garde.

After the Second World War, Italy reshaped modernism in the manner of the United States to make it a symbol of new democracy and capitalism. They modified and updated it through many distinctive methods. After 1960, Italian modernists gradually became formalists. . Alternately embracing the aesthetic form of organic form and geometric fashion, many designers actually use both aesthetic senses. They focus on rationalist research on functions, materials, and technology. This creates a new fashion - "Italian." Beautiful has become a practical alternative and has become the new design standard. They completely broke with the Bauhaus pioneers.

On the other hand, in the field of design, Italy first began to respond to anti-modernism. When Italians proposed "radical design" or "anti-design," the term "anti-modern" often appears in these exhibition. The term “post-Modernism” (Post-Modernism) is very common in the United States. The word has some problems. First, the prefix “post” means that the movement was developed after the modernism, but in Italy, this Both ideas have been moving forward simultaneously since the sixties. Moreover, if it is not defamatory, the term “postmodernism” has been implicitly derogatory to some people, perhaps because it is often used as a fashionable label in many antique architectural works in the United States. Such as Micheal Graves and Robort. AM Stern (their anti-modern design was not produced until the late 70s and early 80s). The term "anti-modernism" shows a basic fact: No matter how diversified his performance is, it does become a strong opponent of "modernism."

The Italian anti-modernists proposed a new design concept. They challenged many of the basic principles that govern the design field since the 1920s. The emergence of anti-modernism stems from the realization that modernism in the 1960s has given up the initial ideological pursuit and has become a purely formalist design concept to satisfy the commercial needs of the consumer society. From this point of view, the designer has It has become a "tool" for maintaining capitalist political rule and economic development. For this reason, the anti-modernists proposed a theoretical framework for alternative modern design: the primary goal of design should be to create cultural, intellectual, and political expressions, instead of using it as an important means of transforming society. .

To a considerable extent, anti-modernists believe that design is the same as architecture. Design does not need to follow the parameters of the building (although modernists value it), it can develop completely independently, like the American streamlined design since the 1930s or the more recent American studio industry "studio movment".

Anti-modernism is also characterized by the decorative tradition of revived design. The decorative tradition in design, in the 30s, faced the growing theoretical and aesthetic views of modernism and was almost abolished. This emerging interest in decoration lasted for twenty or thirty years and was a serious challenge to the absolute authority of modernist industrial design aesthetics.

This conceptual shift in the fierce design field has changed almost every aspect of the field in a very short period of time. Compared with the “good taste” of the modernists, the anti-modernists preach the mediocrity and daily life. More fundamentally, they support intuitive and anti-rational methodologies. They explore the similarities and resonances between fine art and architecture, and introduce it as a dialectic element into the design.