Ebook The Players of Italian Design
”Italy was, from the outset, more determined [than other countries] to discover a new formula for its particular marriage between art and industry” (Sparke, 1987). From the start, this formula manifested in relationships very particular to Italian economic realities, with design playing a key and leading role; this situation was markedly different from the prevailing industrial economic model used in other countries. Since the onset of modernity and the late - at first slow - industrial revolution in Italy, it has been particular people and groups who have made this uniquely Italian design a reality, and who continue to play key roles in Italian industry to this day. These are the players of Italian design: intellectuals, designers, and enlightened companies. Through discourse between each other, the players collaboratively distill the geographic, economic, historic, and cultural context of Italy into forms that can be applied to production. This discursive relationship is unique to Italy. It is our entry point for illuminating how innovative design remains a key generator of economic success in Italy.
At a time when the Italian economy is again struggling, our perspective as Canadians between the American and European situations, and as foreigners in Italy, leads us to conclude that understanding the nature of inter-relationships between Italian designers will be a key factor in enabling economic recovery, and can provide an alternative model that will inform how we design in Canada. Italy has a rich past of innovating through design and this paper will seek to analyze how this success is formed, in its manifold ways. Designer and theorist Andrea Branzi spoke of the “many different realities” of Italian design. Each category of player in Italian design presides over one of these realities – these ways of looking at things – and the results of their investigation of that reality facilitate a discourse that fuels the uniquely valuable Italian approach to design process. In the discourse between companies, designers, and intellects, the criteria for evaluating design, the ideas themselves, and the production needs have all evolved over generations. The discourse also produces strong relationships between the players that bring critical mass to projects and ultimately grow out from the embedded values of Italian culture: our project’s meta-thesis of “slowness”, family and relationships, quality, and theoretical pursuit. This paper will begin the process of revealing the unique ways that the players of Italian design operate and, through their interplay, continue to create innovation.
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Ebook The Players of Italian Design
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