Crafting design in Italy

<p><i>Crafting design in Italy</i> is the first book to examine the role that craft played in post-war Italian design one of the most celebrated design episodes in the twentieth century. Craft was vital to the development of Italian design and it has been so far overlooked.<br><br>This book examines the multiple ways craft shaped Italian design from 1945 to the 1980s in the context of bigger socio-economic cultural and political change; from post-war reconstruction to the economic 'miracle' of the 1960s to the rise of the countercultural Radical Design movement and advent of postmodernism. It consists of case studies on design areas including product furniture fashion glass and ceramics to bring to light previously unknown makers and objects as well as re-examine design 'icons' such as Gio Ponti's Superleggera chair and Ettore Sottsass's Memphisware. It also offers a model for analysing design and craft's relationship in other contexts including today.</p>