2. Pierluigi Nervi, the art of building by Gabriele Neri (Hoepli editore, 60 euro)

He was not a designer, he was not an architect, and yet he contributed to radically changing the rules (and lines) of large contemporary constructions.

Pierluigi Nervi, in the second half of the 20th century, was the most famous engineer in the world, a character who, through his architecture, gave - literally - a new form to the 20th century, between aesthetics and - above all - functionality.

In this, the first complete monograph on Nervi, the result of years of study, frequenting archives, finding documents and interviews with those who knew him, the architectural historian Gabriele Neri retraces his career, challenges and thought. Highlighting all the greatness of a leading figure in the Italian engineering school of the last century.

3. Design spokes. Bicycles between ingenuity, art and innovation by Paolo Carosini (Ediciclo, Ritratti series, 29.90 euros)

This book tells the story of its evolution through the 50 most iconic models described in detail, from the wooden and aluminum bicycle of the Vianzone brothers (1936), to the very elegant BSA Paratrooper (1940s) up to the heroic Bianchi “World Champion”. And for each one Paolo Carosini describes the history of the brand, the design and the technological solutions adopted. Page after page, the most innovative bikes in terms of materials, aesthetics, and applied technology parade. And the most beautiful, so much so that some of them are now found in the most important museums of modern art.

4. Arab Design Now by Rana Beiruti (Silvana Editoriale, 45 euros)

It does so through 70 projects selected by Rana Beiruti, curator and co-founder of the Amman Design Week, from those exhibited. Works that range from textiles to ceramics, from graphics to architecture. More than a simple report of the Biennale, Arab Design Now is therefore an immersion in the influences and interconnections that characterize Arab design, a place of mixing between different cultures, distant traditions but also of attention to super-contemporary themes such as sustainability and the protection of cultural heritage.

5. Ferréol Babin by Barbara Brondi and Marco Rainò (Quodlibet Studio, 18 euros)

Playful and irreverent like the wooden spoons that are not used for eating, the lamps that look like vases and the jugs tilted on one side, halfway between the archaic artifact and the ultra-contemporary product. Barbara Brondi and Marco Rainò, architects, designers and founders of the BRH+ studio in Turin, retrace his career in this book through a series of objects, which may or may not be liked but which stand out for their formal purity and artisanal inspiration.

A modus operandi that puts the designer in essential connection with nature, its materials and its life cycles.