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In recent years it has been rediscovered desire to furnish the house with objects from the 60s. After the war, during the economic boom, it would have been unthinkable to hold at home a piece of solid wood furniture or a showcase of manufacturing handcrafted, perhaps belonged to some relative. The tagline in furnishing one’s own spaces, both domestic, both working, it was “out with the old, in with the new”, in short it was the elegy of modernity.
Not only were cars and motorcycles the expression of the most forward-looking and pioneering Italian design of that period; innovation was found above all in everyday objects such as the television which, like the radio before it, had been an important product in post-war life, a symbol of family and social conviviality.
As with means of transport and mass-produced cars, household appliances and other electrical appliances, the television represents a revolution both in its use, as a portable object, and in furnishing. No longer large and cumbersome, no longer inserted in the furniture of the living room, living room or in dedicated places, the television is transformed into something more futuristic, lightened in shape, size and colored thanks to the use of plastic materials for the body.
Doney is the first portable television, awarded the Compasso d’Oro, designed by Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper. It was made by the Brionvega company which then after a few years produced Algol designed by the same designers with a more squared shape but which maintained the originality of the carrying handle. This same object will become a furnishing element for the sets of some well-known film productions.
In the film “The Unleashed” by Franco Indovina where the actor Vittorio Gassman plays an advertising star, the director not by chance furnishes the bedroom with design objects, but, above all, inserts the Algol portable television, to underline the work of the protagonist.
And it is precisely the world of cinema that celebrates Italian design as an icon of style, not just for fashion: just remember the poster for the film “Roman Holiday” by William Wyler, with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn sitting on the Piaggio Vespa.
Subsequently, products designed in the 60s arrive which are still used today to furnish and inspire scenographies; the directors enjoy making the characters interact with these objects of modernity. An example is the Sacco seat, produced by the Zanotta company, which breaks the formality of the environment in which it is inserted. Sacco is also remembered by the Italians because she is present in the comic film “Fantozzi” in which the mythical accountant has to sit not on the usual office armchairs but on a red, soft, leather object which is too modern for him and which does not he manages to tame by constantly falling. This seat is the expression of a cultural revolution, in which the innovation designed by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and Franco Teodoro is expressed. The shape of the Sacco armchair changes and adapts to the body weight of the individual person thanks to the filling of highly resistant expanded polystyrene pellets. Today the Sacco seat is one of the most used models in working environments and coworking spaces.
The structure and padding of the classic seats and armchairs known up to that moment, thus made room for new objects made fun, comfortable, colorful for those open, informal living environments free from dividers.
In the classic living room solid elements were being replaced with light furnishings, no longer tied to a single room, to a single environment. This is why famous Italian and foreign directors such as Dino Risi, Pedro Almodóvar, Woody Allen have continued to use Italian design to tell incredible stories and adventures set in modern houses and futuristic environments.
Just think of the James Bond films. An example among all? In “The Spy Who Loved Me” directed by Lewis Gilbert, the character Stromberg while telling his spells
plans to agent 007 inside the underwater base, he is sitting on the Elda armchair designed by Joe Colombo and produced by the Longhi company. In a very futuristic black control room with white furnishings and a large golden globe, the director frames the character dressed entirely in gray sitting on Elda, rigorously white with black leather interior. It will not be the first or the last film in which a director will choose it as a piece of furniture that accompanies and characterizes the character who sits there. The beauty of this visionary seat is given by its enveloping shape and the 360° revolving structure in fiberglass, with the internal lining and cushions in leather. This armchair underlines the experimentation of processes and materials for the creation of products that express the genius of the designers, objects that have made Italy famous all over the world. Joe Colombo in his short life also designed famous lamps such as Spider, made by the Oluce company with which he won the Compasso d’Oro. It is one of the lamp models made up of a single lighting body, designed for a special horizontal spot light bulb, designed to be used for table, floor, wall and ceiling use.
Lamps are often used to create the ideal atmosphere for the protagonist of a film, where the character at the desk lights up in the scene or when you want to focus attention on the conversation on the phone or on the frontal dialogue of the protagonists. This happens in the film “Pain and Glory” by Pedro Almodóvar in which the Pipistrello lamp designed by Gae Aulenti and made by the Martinelli Luce company makes the scene intimate. The profile of the lampshade recalls the wings of a bat and makes the light diffuse and not just focused on the surface: a sophisticated and elegant result made possible by the shape of the base and the stainless steel telescopic system that allows you to adjust the height.
After all, it is thanks to the choice of these details that that film manages to give us a moment, a vision, a feeling that makes us fall in love with that lamp, that table, that seat that led us to buy that product. It is no coincidence that important scenographers have had the task of setting up the rooms making use of Italian companies to recreate rooms, dedicated spaces, recognizing Italian design’s ability to have known how to create objects and furnishings with incomparable and famous shapes.
PHOTO: ADI FOUNDATION PHOTO ARCHIVE COMPASSO D’ORO COLLECTION
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