The birth of the design culture in Italy goes back to the extraordinary talents of the Renaissance, such as Leonardo da Vinci, and it reaches the modern art schools, which have made it possible for the contemporary industrial design to develop in many fertile and diversified ways. In particular, since the second postwar period, Italian design has quickly matured to support the growth of the country and it has launched a new concept of research. In driving industrial production, Italian design has shaped the objectives of development, and generated its own distinctive national characteristics.
Design permeates many cultural fields. Its novelty combined with the solidity of the traditional handicrafts and with the unprejudiced experimentation gives origin to Italian designers’ personal style and thanks to the notion that beauty must characterize products of mass consumption, art and design coexist and flourish much to their mutual benefit.
Different peoples close or far away from our country have developed a unique attraction for the Italian lifestyle. It very much depends on the aesthetic and technological values that are inherent to our cultural environment and that are the source of the effort to integrate art with functions.
The influence of Italian design has also been determined by the continuous evolution of themes and techniques. Authors’ creativity and pressure from manufacturers contribute to define a style that keeps changing while maintaining a distinctive Italian flavor even when foreign architects and designers participate in the production of the final design item.
The making of Italian design encourages a fusion of cultures that is one of the finest outputs of globalization; it fosters not only manufacturing processes but also intercultural dialogue. The concept behind designer objects have shaped a sort of universal language that tells stories about people who have every day, in every country, the same trivial needs for lamps and chairs, pots and bicycles, and so forth. The pleasure that beautiful ordinary objects can bring into everyday’s life is the intuition of the Italian design school.
by the Italian Cultural Institute of the Consulate General of Italy in Hong Kong
