Gillo Dorfles. The Aesthetic View

How did design start in Italy? Gillo Dorfles reflects on the first enlightened industrial entrepreneurs, on the meaning of mass production, and on graphic and industrial design. Because, as a professor of aesthetics, in addition to speaking about Aristotle and Picasso, he always also looked towards fashion, design, and their relationship with art.

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.