Italian design

Timeless & unique

We all love it. Romania it. Feast on it. Admire it. Imitate it. But what exactly is it, that legendary Italian style, that sense of design that seems unique in the world. And perhaps more interestingly, where does it come from?And then there was the car. For if one object embodies the enchantment of Italian design, surely that one machine that represented modernity in the 20th century. Of course, fine cars were also designed elsewhere, but nowhere were beauty (and character) so obvious.

The number of iconic Fiats is too long to list, but still: the Topolino, the 500 and 600, and later, love it or hate it, the quirky Multipla (by the way, the old Fiat factory in Lingotto is itself a world-famous design icon because of that insane test track on the roof). And what about Alfa Romeo, some more beautiful than others. The 1967 T33/2 Stradale Prototipo and the TZ2 (Tubolare Zagato) were driving sculptures. Not to mention all those enchanting Ferraris (the 250 GTO Berlinetta Lusso, the 410 Superamerica, the Testarossa), Lamborghinis (the sublime Miura, the Countach LP 400) and Maseratis (well, that Ghibli). It was (and is) as if Italians simply could not make ugly cars (no, even that first Panda was at least special).Some of the most talked-about non-Italian cars, moreover, had Italian origins. The founder of the French brand Bugatti was a boy from Milan. The designer of the Deux-Chevaux: Flaminio Bertone was his name, an architect-sculptor from Turin. The Citroen DS? Ditto. The BMW Isetta (the one with the door at the front): designed by Iso from Turin.

Italy also had a reputation in kitchen gear design. Background to this, according to Grace Lees-Maffei (Made in Italy: Rethinking a Century of Italian Design): eating with family and friends has always been a cornerstone of Italian culture. Wine on the table, a sublime pasta, it is the essence of life, and then you don't put down plastic cutlery and glasses and crockery should also be a feast for the eyes.

What goes for cutlery and crockery also goes for kitchen machines, for Pavoni and Faema espresso machines (see page xx), and for that other coffee machine: the Moka Express percolator (angular hourglass shape, aluminium, black handle) which, chances are, is also in your kitchen and, since it was designed by one Alfonso Bialetti in 1933, has never changed shape. Because this is what a percolator looks like.

Unskilled

Explanations for those special qualities of Italian design were (are) many. It has to do with the lack of design education in the country until the late 20th century, it is said. If you wanted to become a designer, you had to learn the trade on your own. It ensured that Italian design had its origins elsewhere, famed designer Mario Bellini wrote, in "the school of everyday seeing, in the light of the south, in poverty. Quite a number of successful designers too - Bellini, Aldo Rossi, Flaminio Bertone, Ettore Sottsass and Allesandro Mendini (designer of the famous Alessi corkscrew and of the Groninger Museum) - entered the world of design via another profession, architecture, and brought with them a different language and sensitivity.What also played a role: big brands were often family businesses - Olivetti, Armani, Ferrari. And the founders visionary figures who, it was their own money after all, could take more risk. Who were not bothered by shareholders who put certain profits first, and declared market research sacrosanct. And so designers such as Alberto Alessi and Ettore Sottsass (Olivetti's famous Valentine typewriter) came up with 'things' that, while perfectly functional, would not look out of place in a museum of modern art either (and would later end up there), designs that in the 1960s - sometimes called the golden age of Italian design - were strongly influenced by the advent of the Space Age (the design in Stanley Kubrick's Space Odyssey 2001 had a big impact).

Dreams

"Italian design often has a playful character," says Jeffrey Schnapp, Harvard professor and CEO of a design think tank at Piaggio (of the Vespa), "and that stems from the ongoing dialogue between dreams of the future and the enduring influence of the cultural past: through the materials used, through the craft tradition. Italian design is unique in the sense that it combines high-quality industrial design and engineering with a craft practice - (precious) forging, glassblowing and furniture making - that in Italy, unlike in other countries, has survived the process of industrialisation."

Effortless

Some see the roots of Italian design reaching even deeper. From the 11th to 16th centuries, cities such as Venice, Florence and Milan were already leaders in luxury goods, cosmetics and expensive fabrics, and during the Renaissance, the aristocracy in the courts of the many city-states that made up today's 'Italy' at the time spent a lot of money on art and luxury products.It is also with reference to those same courts that that one word first emerges that many believe is deeply connected to Italian design: sprezzatura. A treatise written in the early sixteenth century, Il libro del Cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier), describes how the perfect courtier is to behave: he must act as if what he does or says requires no effort. 'Studied carelessness' is perhaps the best description.

Sprezzatura permeates Italian design, and, above all, Italian fashion (Armani, Gucci, Versace, Dolce e Gabana, Prada, Valentino et cetera) that conquered the world from the 1950s onwards, partly due to the popularity of Italian cinema. Federico Fellini's La dolce Vita and Roma, the films of Visconti and De Sica; they showed the world the alluring Italy of Vespas and Fiats 500, brought the careless grace of Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroiani: the sprezzatura incarnate.

From then on, Italy was identified with stylish, became the country where all men wore finely cut suits and women wore luxurious cashmere jumpers, equally perfectly cut trousers and pumps. Sunglasses, another thing, who could live without them. A scarf, it was part of the deal. Italy was cool.

Shelf life

Of course, there is a lot of myth surrounding that famous 'Italian design'. "It has also, since the 1980s, become a marketing tool," says Schnapp: "The label 'Italian design' has lost content due to globalisation: design is now created in places where people of different nationalities come together, at design and art academies. "Moreover, Italian manufacturers have always known how to attract talented foreign designers. Alessi's famous citrus juicer Juicy Salif was designed by Frenchman Philippe Starck.

The sensational Moto Aprillia 650: Starck again. Chief designer of Gucci for many years: Tom Ford. But that in no way means that Italian design does not exist at all (anymore).

After all, the fact that foreign designers love to come to Italy is not for nothing. And once in Milan or Turin, they are automatically absorbed into that Italian design culture from which all those wonderful designs emerged, touched by dolce far niente and sprezzatura, they themselves become, there is little to be said against it, a little bit Italian.