Munari, Diseño Y Arte

DESIGN AS ART

Toda y it has become necessary to demolish thc myth o f the
'star' artist who only produces masterpieces for a small
group o f ultra-intclligent people. I t must be unde.rstood
that as long as art stands aside from the problems o f life
it will only interest a very few people. Culture today is
becoming a mass affair, and the artist must step clown from
his pedestal and beprepared to make a sigo for a butcher's
shop ( if he knows h ow t o d o it ). The anist muse cast o ff
the last rags o f romanticism and become active as a man
among men, well up in present-day techniques, materials
and working methods. Without losing his innate aesthetic
sense he must be able t o respond with bwnility and competence t o the demands his neighbours may make o f him.
Thedesigner o f t oda y re-establishes the long-lost contact
between are and the public, between living people and a rt as
a living thing. Instead o f pictures for the drawiog-room,
electric gadgets for the kitchen. There should be no such
thing as a rt divorced from life, with beautifuJ things to look
at and hideous things to use. I f what we use every day is
made with art, and not thrown togetherby chancc or caprice,
then w e shall have nothing to hide.
Anyone working in the field o f design has a hard task

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ahead o f h im: t o clear his n eighbour's mind o f all preconceived notions o f a rt a nd anists, notions picked up a t schools
where they condition you t o think one way for the whole
o f your life, without stopping t o think t hat life c hangesaod today more rapidlythan ever. l t is therefore up t o us
designers t o make known o ur working methods in clear aod
simple terms, the methods w e think are the truest, the most
up-to-date, the most l ikdy t o resolve our common aesthetic
problems. Anyone who uses a properly designed object feels
the presence o f a n artist who has worked for him, bettering
his living conditions a nd encouraging him t o develophis
taste a nd sense o f beauty.
. W hen w e give a place o fhonour in the drawing-room t o
an ancient Etruscan vase which w e consider beautiful, well
proportioned a nd m ade with precision and economy, we
must also remember t hat the vase once had an extremely
common use:. M ost probably it was used for cooking-oil. l t
was made by a d esigner o f those times, when are a nd life
went handin h and and there was no such thing as a work o f
· a n t o look a t a nd just a ny o ld thing t o us e.
1 havc therefore very gladly accepted che proposal that
1 should bring t ogcther in a volume the articles 1 originally
pubüshed in the Milanesc: paper I l Giorno. T o thc:sc: 1 have
added othc:r texts, as well as a loe o f illustrations which it
was n ot possiblc: t o pubüsh in thelirnitc:d space o f a daily
paper. 1 have also made a few essential changes for the
Engüsh c:dition.
1 hopc: t hat o ther designers will make similar effons
t o spread knowlc:dge o f o ur work, for our methods are daily
asserting thc:msc:lves as thc 6.ttest way o f gaioing the confidc:nce o f meo a t large, and o f giving a meaning t o our
present way o f lifc:.

Design as A rt

D esigo carneinto being in 1919, when Walter Gropius founded
the Bauhaus a t Weímar. P art o f the prospectus o f this school
reads:
' We k now t hat only the rechnical means o f artistic achievement
can be taught, not art itself. T he functioo o f a n has in the past
been given a formal importance which has severed ir from our
daily life; but a n is always preseot wheo a people lives sincerely
andhealthily.
' Our j ob is thereforc: to inveor a nc:w system o f e ducation rhat
may l ead- by w ay o f a n ew kind o f specialized teaching o f science
and technology - to a complete knowledge ofhuman needs a nda
universal awareness o f them.
'Thus our task is to make a new kind o f artist, a creator capable
o f understanding every kind o f need: not beca use he is a prodigy,
but because he...