At the end of the 2nd world war Italy was a devastated country, both socially and physically; architectural movement, that had a strong relationship with the fascist regime, was not able to modernize leaving the innovation, both formal and conceptual to “industrial design”. This was made easier by the rising of artistic tendencies censored by fascist regime and by the participation of Italy to Marshall Plan, that was a great help for developing companies. These were usually rather small and to be competitive in the market they had to work for high quality products, that could be reached only with good designers.

The birth of Italian design of the 50’s come from the interaction of designers as innovators by nature and companies as innovators by duty.

For the developing of the phenomenon the avantgarde experimental art knowledge was basic: design magazines played an essential role. Among these Domus, under the Giò Ponti direction, was the most important and the works by Eames, Nelson and Noguchi and by Tange and Barragan as well as by Fontana and Matisse was spread in Italy through its pages. Ponti, furthermore, is one of the most important designers in the period and his designs (such as Superleggera by Cassina, 1951) respect high quality experimental standards.

This decade was marked by the success of designers who will cross design history up to our days:

Marco Zanuso (Lady by Arflex 1951 – Black by Brionvega – Marcuso by Zanotta)

Bruno Munari (many designs by Danese, among these Falkland fabric hanging lamp is the most famous).

Castiglioni brothers (Achille e Pier Giacomo) apply a traditional conceptual art process and supply functional solutions to living with a distortion procedure while keeping a strong ironic power (Toio and Splugen by Flos, Mezzadro by Zanotta).

This decade, respecting the motto “industrial design for industrial companies” is also marked by the rising of companies that will be in design history, beyond the designers:

Arflex (1950), Tecno (1952), Gavina (1953), Zanotta (1955) ed Artemide (1959) and the great design path made by Olivetti with Marcello Nizzoli before and Ettore Sottsass in a second time.

During the 60’s Italy experiences the so called “boom economico” decade: Italian design is characterized by two opposite tendencies: a commercial one, as result of professional designers work and an experimental one, drawing inspiration from Pop culture in a first time and from Radical by the end of the decade.

The 60’s design is mainly Pop, aiming on one side to please the rising middle class taste and on the other to upset it with meaning distortion method, scale changes and the use of original materials (plastic, steel, polyurethane, inflatable structures) and related techniques. This is the decade in which industrial design shows its deeply unclear character: “revolution” at the service of “conservation” (market).

Important work of the 60’s that are still bestsellers:

Selene (Magistretti by Artemide 1961)

Plia (Piretti by Castelli 1969)

Cubico e Falkland (Munari by Danese 1961-63)

Arco, Taccia, Noce (Castiglioni by Flos 1962, 64, 1972)

Eclisse (Magistretti by Artemide 1967)

Tizio (Sapper by Artemide 1972)