bruno munari:
revolutions of
the water mill:
PART 2
On iTunes · on spotify · transcript
EPISODE NOTES
The Italian graphic designer Bruno Munari made experimental books, including unreadable books, a book made out of tin, and another made into a bed. But he had clear and specific ideas about what makes book a book, even if, in his view, the format of a book is dynamic and subject to endless interrogation.
Part 1 of this story focused on Munari's formal experimentations with the book as an object, especially his work between 1930 and 1960. This episode picks up in 1962 and looks at Munari’s work contributions to the “gentle revolution” in Italian education, and his legacy as an industrial designer and design educator.
Sources for this episode are at the bottom of this page.
more from me on munari
· video: “Little Green Riding Hood”
· audio: interview with Pietro Corraini
· audio: reading from Munari’s book Design as Art: “Childrens’ Books”
· audio: part 1 of “Revolutions of the Water Mill”
gallery
A Munari workshop with children, in 1969. Photo from Aldo Tanchis’ book on Munari
Gianni Rodari’s Telephone Tales for Einaudi, with illustration by Munari, 1962
Bruno Munari’s Falkland lamp for Danese, 1964
Emme Edizioni was opened in 1966 and released contemporary children’s books, like this translation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are
William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones’ The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 1896 is an example of Morris’ use of the book as a space to preserve the past and his ornamental, anti-industrial, and medieval aesthetic
Walter Crane’s 1873 Little Red Riding Hood is a good example of an Arts + Crafts-influenced, traditional fairy tale
Bruno Munari’s Abitacolo, displayed at MoMA in Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, 1972 and put into production in 1979
Xeriographia, 1972, from Giorgio Maffei’s Munari’s Books
Drawing a Tree, 1977, part of the Workshop series begun with Corraini in 1973
sources for this episode
Emilio Ambasz, Italy: the new domestic landscape achievements and problems of Italian design, New York Graphic Society, 1972
Sandra Beckett, Crossover Picture Books, Taylor & Francis, 2013
Marnie Campagnaro, “Materiality in Bruno Munari’s Book Objects: The Case of Nella notte buia and I Prelibri,” University of Padua, 2019
Claudio Cerritelli, Bruno Munari: Total Artist, Museo Ettore Fico, 2017
Alessandro Colizzi, “Bruno Munari and the invention of modern graphic design in Italy, 1928– 1945, 2011,” Leiden University
Corraini Edizioni & Istituto Italiano di Cultura Londra, “Play to Learn” podcast
Michael Cramer, “Rosselini’s History Lessons”, New Left Review 78, Nov/Dec 2012
Steven Guarnaccia, “Discover one of Bruno Munari’s masterpieces: ‘Nella notte buia’ (In the dark of the night),” Center For Italian Modern Art
Miroslava Hájek and Luca Zaffarano, Bruno Munari: My Futurist Past, Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, Silvana Editoriale, 2012
Jarlath Killeen, The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, 2016
Alessandro Ludovico, Post-Digital Print: The Mutation of Publishing since 1894, Onomatopee 77, 2012
Giorgio Maffei, Munari’s Books, Princeton Architectural Press, 2008
Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou, “How the '70s Radical Design Group Shaped the New Domestic Landscape,” L’Officiel, Singapore, 2021
Bruno Munari, Design as Art, Penguin, 2019 (1966)
Bruno Munari, Maurizio Corraini and Vanni Scheiwiller, Good Design, Corraini, 1998 (1963)
Bruno Munari, Le Persone che hanno fatto grande Milano #26: Bruno Munari, Società Italiana Dolciario Alimentare Milano per Azioni, March 1983
Gianni Rodari, The Telephone Tales, Enchanted Lion Books, 2020 (1962)
Vanessa Roghi, “Per una didattica degli errori,” Feb 25, 2021
Meryle Secrest, ‘Mysterious Affair at Olivetti’, Knopf, 2019
Aldo Tanchis, Bruno Munari: Design as Art, MIT Press, 1986