Design as Art: Bruno Munari (Penguin Modern Classics)

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One of the ideas I enjoyed reading about that truly questions the relation between art and design was Munari’s reflections on ‘wearing’. He asks us to look at how an object is ‘worn’ and becomes ‘worn’ with use. He then asks if we should design on the sole merit of aesthetics or if we should limit ourselves to user-needs? Munari suggests that maybe we should design objects after observing how they have become worn with time. Bowers is a brand designer and illustrator who believes that art encompasses many creative disciplines, design being one, and therefore design is art. But a strange thing happened. The more people studied Vermeer and his work, the more they realized that his paintings and process were truly unlike any other artist’s. How so? Bruno Munari, ‘Works 1930–1996’, 2018, installation view, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York. Courtesy: Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York Much like art, the concept of aesthetics is a complicated field of philosophical thought and cannot be reduced to the designer stereotype that it means “making things look pretty.”

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The “working intuitively” part alone can’t be achieved by “art”; it’s driven by user research and testing. Good design is also data-driven. What is more, in the near future, AI will transform the way design is delivered. It will be super-personalized and anticipatory. Will design as “art” be able to do that? I don’t think so.Design] is planning: the planning as objectively as possible of everything that goes to make up the surroundings and atmosphere in which men live today." (35) Bruno Munari, Curve di Peano P64.1, 1974, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm. Courtesy: Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

Bruno Munari’s Design as Art | Frieze

Each topic area covers a bunch of sub-topics. Some stuff I skipped or skimmed, some stuff I was genuinely interested in, I read all the way through.

Design as Art di Bruno Munari

While Munari’s precise level of ideological involvement with the regime remains a question of some controversy, his body of work far exceeds any facile reduction to propaganda, or even politics more broadly. Munari remained his own man, producing a mind-boggling range of experiments which straddle different media, discipline, genres and affects. His Illegible Writings of an Unknown People (1973) reveal a light-hearted meditation not only upon typeface design and legibility, but anthropological and linguistic mysteries (the latter evoked, too, in his famous 1958 Talking Fork). So, too, his Theoretical Reconstruction of an Imaginary Object (1971) combines the practical mechanics of engineering with an almost metaphysical play upon systems theory. Perhaps most striking on view at Kreps – amidst a striking range of experiments – are two Fossils from the Year 2000 (1959), which sandwich unrecognizable valves and mechanized parts between some transparent substance. Recalling Duchamp’s The Large Glass ( The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, 1915–23), the works conjure up a future where even the ‘futuristic’ apparatuses of modernity bear all the obviated mystery of some fossil frozen in amber. The essays in the book are part of social commentary, part musing and part criticism about the world of design, filled with “abused objects” and the tone of them sets the book apart from most other research tomes that otherwise dominate the world of design thinking. It is filled with observations and thoughtful reflections of the material world, which is one of the most powerful tools a designer can have. I will limit myself to saying that Bruno Munari is one of the most important designers of the last century, a figure who defined the role of the designer, both with his professional experiences and with his thoughts. One of the most influential designers of the twentieth century ... Munari has encouraged people to go beyond formal conventions and stereotypes by showing them how to widen their perceptual awareness' For example, in Don Norman’s seminal book “ The Design of Everyday Things,” he talks about design and the concept of affordances. (The concept of an affordance was coined by the perceptual psychologist James J. Gibson in his groundbreaking book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception.) Norman writes:

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Notice the words in bold. Artists “intentionally endow” their work with meaning to a high degree. In other words, they consciously enhance or purposefully enrich. There is intent married to action. The book is full of mental jiu-Jitsu that truly makes you think about the design of everyday objects. As Andrea Branzi describes it, Munari has a subversive style of thinking that might strike a chord with any designer trying to do something different with his practice without going overboard. For example, in one essay Munari describes an orange, a pea and a rose as though they were industrial products. He proposes that the rose is “an object without justification, and one moreover that may lead the worker to think futile thoughts. It is, in the last analysis, even immoral.” Impeccable reasoning, absurd conclusion: a perfect illustration of Munari’s mental jiu-jitsu in action. I am ashamed to write these few lines about Munari. Not only because reading his story makes me realise how unattainable the quality and scope of his imprint is. But also because Munari did so much and so well that it is impossible to reduce him to a biography.Art and all its disciplines, including design, require a mix of objectivity and subjectivity. Of course, there will be designers who roll their eyes and declare, “Art is purely subjective. It can mean different things to different people.” The obvious counterpoint? “Same with design!” We know that only the technical means of artistic achievement can be taught, not art itself. The function of art has in the past been given a formal importance which has severed it from our daily life; but art is always present when a people lives sincerely and healthily. He cites Gorky in his introduction and also asks the reader to not hold too tightly to their conception of what art is and isn’t. Following that, the essays are grouped into five areas: Designers as stylists, Visual design, Graphics, Industrial Design, and Research. Con la penna fu un genio del designer e un ottimo scrittore. Cose che non coesistono obbligatoriamente, insieme a molte altre che attiravano l’eclettismo di Munari. Any knowledge of the world we live in is useful, and enables us to understand things that previously we did not know existed." (82)