What are the perspectives for renewal of design Made in Italy?

Moderated by the director of the London Design Museum Deyan Sudjic, on Friday 20 September 2019 at Saatchi Gallery in London, three excellent speakers discussed the renewed meaning of the quality of Made in Italy.

I-Made, the exhibition-event curated by Giulio Cappellini on Italian craftsmanship and manufacturing, presented a talk in which Interni took an active part in the construction of the content. The speakers were Aldo Cibic, the well-known Italian designer who combines a focus on products with expertise in urban planning; Claudio Lazzarini and Carl Pickering, with a studio based in Rome that focuses on tailor-made projects on all scales; and Richard Woods, a figure who has made an artistic approach the key to his way of practicing design.

The debate concentrated on the modus operandi and the pursuit of new ways of rethinking the architecture of spaces. During the talks, it became clear that themes apparently extraneous to design have now become parts of the discipline. What we call design in Italy (the English are more specific, differentiating between Urban or Product or Art or Process Design), becomes increasingly apt as an element of synthesis.

The object, resulting from new design approaches, is no longer seen as a thing in itself, but as part of a system of dynamic and multifunctional relations.

Deyan Sudjic explained that “Design connects and creates new synergies”: the new generations of architects and designers are necessarily stimulated to create objects inserted in a space that is increasingly liquid, with functions that are increasingly interconnected.

The debate on the new quality of the meaning of design is open. The future has never been quite so present before. (Carlo Biasia)