Made in Italy - (Paperback)

About the Book

Goods made or designed in Italy enjoy a profile which far outstrips the country's modest manufacturing output. Italy's glorious design heritage and reputation for style and innovation has 'added value' to products made in Italy. Since 1945, Italian design has commanded an increasing amount of attention from design journalists, critics and consumers. But is Italian design a victim of its own celebrity? Made in Italy brings together leading design historians to explore this question, discussing both the history and significance of design from Italy and its international influence. Addressing a wide range of Italian design fields, including car design, graphic design, industrial and interior design and ceramics, well-known designers such as Alberto Rosselli and Ettore Sottsass, Jr. and iconic brands such as Olivetti, Vespa and Alessi, the book explores the historical, cultural and social influences that shaped Italian design, and how these iconic designs have contributed to the modern canon of Italian-inspired goods.

Book Synopsis

Goods made or designed in Italy enjoy a profile which far outstrips the country's modest manufacturing output. Italy's glorious design heritage and reputation for style and innovation has 'added value' to products made in Italy. Since 1945, Italian design has commanded an increasing amount of attention from design journalists, critics and consumers. But is Italian design a victim of its own celebrity? Made in Italy brings together leading design historians to explore this question, discussing both the history and significance of design from Italy and its international influence. Addressing a wide range of Italian design fields, including car design, graphic design, industrial and interior design and ceramics, well-known designers such as Alberto Rosselli and Ettore Sottsass, Jr. and iconic brands such as Olivetti, Vespa and Alessi, the book explores the historical, cultural and social influences that shaped Italian design, and how these iconic designs have contributed to the modern canon of Italian-inspired goods.

Review Quotes

"Made in Italy is an original attempt to address the issue of 'Rethinking a Century of Italian Design'." --Vanni Pasca, Associazione Italiana degli Storici del Design, Italy, The Journal of Design History

"Made in Italy investigates the celebrated history of industrial design in modern Italy. It examines what makes an object Italian in a world characterized by increasingly interconnected production, marketing, and consumption networks...The book does several things well: it describes the complex synthesis of regional, national, and international influences that have combined to affect how Italian design is understood; brings attention to the influence of craft on Italian design history; and offers an extensive, up-to-date bibliography. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers." --A. R. Michelson, University of Washington Libraries, CHOICE

"Made in Italy offers a multi-faceted picture of how the fiction of the nation has been edited and rewritten over the course of the 20th century in the service of yet another enduring fiction-one based on both the facts and myths of Italian design. This carefully curated collection of essays asks us to understand that the relationship between geography and design is, and was, never contained in a map but something far less stable-culture." --Susan Yelavich, Parsons The New School for Design, USA

About the Author

Grace Lees-Maffei is reader in Design History and TVAD Research Group co-ordinator at the University of Hertfordshire and managing editor of the Journal of Design History. She is the editor of Writing Design: Words and Objects (Bloomsbury Academic, 2011) and Iconic Designs: 50 Stories about 50 Things (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), and co-editor of The Design History Reader (Bloomsbury Academic, 2010). She is also author of Design at Home (2013).

Kjetil Fallan is associate professor of Design History at the University of Oslo. He is the author of Design History: Understanding Theory and Method (Bloomsbury Academic, 2010) and the editor of Scandinavian Design: Alternative Histories (Bloomsbury Academic, 2012) and is also an editor of the Journal of Design History.