Design? What Design?
A while ago, I went to the Milan Triennale. Quite an event. It was early morning and I had time to spare. So, as always, I veered off towards the bookshop. There were so few people. The silence was unreal. Perfect for losing oneself. And I did. I was not looking for a specific title or author. I let myself be guided by the covers, the typefaces, the words printed on the spines. Titles that catch the eye and stay with you.
Vico Magistretti. Architetto milanese (Gabriele Neri, Electa) and Io sono un Drago. La vera storia di Alessandro Mendini (Fulvio Irace, Electa) are just two examples. The selection, as always, is an elegant trap. A sequence of temptations. I’m about to leave. Then it happens. On the shelf next to the till, tucked away, no larger than a Moleskine diary. I stop. It is not the book that draws me. It is the name. Gae Aulenti. And then, the title: Vedere molto, immaginare molto (Edizioni di Comunità). The words are enough. I take it with me. I soon realise it was the right choice.
Inside, just a few pages, but dense. Gae Aulenti offers clear, unambiguous reflections on the meaning of architecture and design. Words that hit home, unfiltered. “Even the most explosive moments in design history have failed to generate transformations worthy of note,” she writes. “The inflatable and cardboard furniture of the 1960s, designed to be thrown away, was an objectionable idea: the concept of the ephemeral. I want objects we design to last a hundred years… Durability is, for me, a profound and moral issue. This is why a designer, even when designing an object that will be produced and face a fate they cannot predict, must design it as if it were destined for a specific place…”. Words that linger. That return some time later. The Salone del Mobile. The Fuorisalone. Milan. We need clarity. We need filters. To avoid being overwhelmed. We risk getting lost in the frenzy, in the excess, in the noise. An event increasingly driven by commercial and entertainment logic, rather than by a genuine creative urgency. Installations everywhere. Squares, streets, courtyards. Spectacular, yes. But often designed to amaze. Not to leave an impression. And so the question returns. Louder. Inconvenient. Today, brand is confused with product. And all too often, it is the former that overwhelms the latter. When it should be the other way round. It is the product that gives meaning, legitimacy and credibility to the brand. Always. The risk is clear. That we drift away from what matters. And so yes, contamination. But with a direction. With vision. And above all, with a design at its heart.
Matteo Zaccagnino
