Is there such a thing as a design language? The rapid growth of design in Italy beginning in the earliest decades of the past century, witnessed the concurrent rise of a specific language that appeared in the writings of the authors of industrial design (artists and craftsmen), as well as those of its theorists (designers and ideologists) or even critics (art critic authors). This paper is meant to appraise design literature from a historical perspective, through the linguistic analysis of texts by its most important exponents (Ponti to Rosselli, to Munari and Mendini). The goal is to discern the main linguistic features of one of the most representative productive fields in twentieth-century Italian civil life. The expected goal is twofold: to begin, as is the case with other disciplines, a study of the linguistic and expressive forms that arose from theoretical changes in the field of design, and to gather into a Glossary the terms that become typical of the design language. Thanks to the description of the distinctive features of linguistic expression in writings on and about design, we wish to contribute to the definition of the individuality of the design discipline, which reflects the syncretism of the specific activities involved in it: from the different phases of industrial production, to design theory, which has always relied on artistic and aesthetic approaches of its time. This analysis bears in mind the principle that a language used to explain and illustrate a practice in perpetual transformation such as design, is itself “living matter”.
Il rapido affermarsi della disciplina del design in Italia fin dai primi decenni del secolo scorso vede emergere in contemporanea una lingua speciale, che si manifesta negli scritti degli artefici del disegno industriale (artisti e artigiani), così come nella scrittura dei suoi teorici (progettisti e ideologi della disciplina) e dei suoi critici (autori dei saggi della critica d’arte). Il contributo qui proposto si pone come obiettivo la valutazione della letteratura del design nella sua prospettiva storica attraverso l’analisi linguistica dei testi dei suoi massimi rappresentanti (da Ponti a Rosselli a Munari a Mendini), per cogliere gli aspetti salienti di uno dei settori produttivi di grande rilievo nella vita civile italiana del Novecento. Grazie alla descrizione dei tratti salienti dell’espressività linguistica di chi scrive del e sul design si intende dare un contributo alla definizione dell’individualità della disciplina, che riflette il sincretismo delle attività settoriali che la compongono (dalla produzione industriale in tutte le sua fasi alla teorizzazione, che da sempre si avvale delle teorie artistiche ed estetiche coeve) e mantenendo presente il principio che una lingua utilizzata per spiegare e raccontare una pratica in continua trasformazione è anch’essa “materia viva”.
"Come scrivono i designer: note di letture comparate per una linguistica disciplinare“
SIEKIERA, Anna Maria
;
2015-01-01
Abstract
Is there such a thing as a design language? The rapid growth of design in Italy beginning in the earliest decades of the past century, witnessed the concurrent rise of a specific language that appeared in the writings of the authors of industrial design (artists and craftsmen), as well as those of its theorists (designers and ideologists) or even critics (art critic authors). This paper is meant to appraise design literature from a historical perspective, through the linguistic analysis of texts by its most important exponents (Ponti to Rosselli, to Munari and Mendini). The goal is to discern the main linguistic features of one of the most representative productive fields in twentieth-century Italian civil life. The expected goal is twofold: to begin, as is the case with other disciplines, a study of the linguistic and expressive forms that arose from theoretical changes in the field of design, and to gather into a Glossary the terms that become typical of the design language. Thanks to the description of the distinctive features of linguistic expression in writings on and about design, we wish to contribute to the definition of the individuality of the design discipline, which reflects the syncretism of the specific activities involved in it: from the different phases of industrial production, to design theory, which has always relied on artistic and aesthetic approaches of its time. This analysis bears in mind the principle that a language used to explain and illustrate a practice in perpetual transformation such as design, is itself “living matter”.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
