Made in Italy ─ Rethinking a Century of Italian Design

Goods made or designed in Italy enjoy a disproportionately high profile, even though, in terms of global manufacturing, Italy’s output is relatively modest. Italy’s glorious design heritage and reputation for innovation mean that goods ‘Made in Italy’, and/or designed in Italy, carry added value. Since 1945, Italian design has commanded an increasing amount of attention from design journalists, critics and consumers. But is Italian design a victim of its own celebrity?

Made In Italy is the first critical study of Italian design to explore this question from the perspective of scholarly investigative chapters, analysing the significance of design from Italy and how its influence upon international design and consumerism has become so renowned and inflated by various media and design criticism.

Using examples from a wide range of Italian design - from the designers themselves such as Gio Ponti and Andrea Branzi, to the urban landscape of the country itself, the book explores the historical, cultural and social influences that dictated design in Italy, and how these iconic designs have shaped and contributed to the modern canon of Italian inspired goods.

Grace Lees-Maffei is Reader in Design History in the School of Creative Arts at the University of Hertfordshire, UK and is co-editor of The Design History Reader (Berg, 2010).

Kjetil Fallan is Associate Professor of Design History in the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo, Norway. He is the author of Design History (Berg, 2010) and the editor of Scandinavian Design (Berg, 2012).