Alberto Meda. Complexity vs Kightness

The most aesthete of designers is an engineer. Alberto Meda reflects on his journey from being a consultant for other people’s ideas to a designer in his own right. His point of view? Technology at the service of simple solutions to complex problems. The aesthetics of a minimum condition is summarized by physical and visual lightness and translated into lamps and chairs.

Design Differences is a series that explores the difference between design and criticism, between functionality and research, two souls that have always been at the heart of Italian design. A dialogue between thinking and doing is characteristic and critical to its success. Two short film groups feature several preeminent figures.

PART I_Creating design. Materials, function, and mass production.
Antonia Astori/ Cini Boeri/ Alberto Meda

The works of three designers, who have helped to make the history of Italian design great, are portrayed in three short films. They talk about coming up against limitations imposed by materials, technology, and mass production. These limitations are accompanied by the functional and aesthetic requirements of the designers, whose visions enable them to anticipate and interpret the world to come.

PART II_Thinking about design. Art, critique, and research.
Gillo Dorfles/ Alessandro Guerriero/ Nanda Vigo

These three figures are difficult to categorize and define. It’s no coincidence that they all dealt in different ways with art and design, creating texts, books, paintings, courses, schools, exhibitions, workshops, installations, performances, and, in some cases, even products. But it wasn’t so much doing as thinking that made them great. When an interpretation of design is combined with research, it becomes fruitfully infected.