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Feb.27,2005 -Mar.6,2005 |
Living with past marked year in design
Re-Issues, Restorations and Retrospectives as we lost Ponti, Zanuso and Bertoia
By Mark Curtis
Originally Published: 2004-01-11
If product re-issues are an indicator of enduring popularity, then 2003 was a good year for Italian design.
Designers no longer with us, such as Harry Bertoia, Gio Ponti and Marco Zanuso, were all recognized for their career achievements with re-issues of their classic designs. Bertoia's Diamond chair - startling when it first appeared in the early 1950s - featured a configuration so complex that its manufacturer, Knoll, had to rely on hand made production. Originally designed for a General Motors showroom, Bertoia's intricate lattice of chromed industrial wire rods was clearly meant for a wider audience. Knoll re-issued the chair (modestly referred to as the "421" chair by the designer himself) in outdoor powder coat finishes of red, yellow, green and blue. Bertoia, born in San Lorenzo, Udine in 1915, emigrated with his family to America in 1930.
Gio Ponti is widely regarded as the father of Italian industrial design in the 20th century. Although much of his work involved laying the groundwork for the Italian design industry, he also contributed significant designs such as his 1957 Superleggera chair for Cassina and his co-design with Pier Luigi Nervi of the Pirelli building in Milan, Italy's first skyscraper. New York-based textile designer and manufacturer Maharam recognized Ponti's stature with a re-issue of the designer's 1930 fabric pattern, I Morosi alla Finestra (The Lovers at the Window), which is typical of Ponti's unique talent for combining tradition with modernity.
Television sets were big and bulky when they first became popular in the 1950s, but the 1960s demanded a more space age design. In Italy, designers Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper achieved this with snappy designs such as the Doney and Algol television sets for manufacturer Brionvega. Doney was the first completely transistorized TV to be produced in Italy and each of the designers' collaborations, which resulted in portable and user-friendly designs, also made full use of the decade's fascination for plastic. Brionvega re-released these classic designs in 2003. Zanuso, who died in 2001, was also recognized for his furniture innovations when B&B Italia marketed a limited edition of the designer's classic 1966 Lombrico sofa, which featured an unprecedented modularity. If one had the money and the space, the Lombrico could be one very long sofa.
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