Author: Maddie George

This was a trip of a lifetime. I never expected anything like this. I was so surprised and pleased with how much design we saw and learned about. Plus, we didn’t only see and learn about design in the graphic sense, but in the architectural, industrial, urban, and product sense. I can say that I have gained a new outlook on design and a new way to observe and think about design. I have also gained a new sense of curiosity so, in the words of my newest favorite designer, Castiglioni, “if you are not curious, forget it.”

Culture in Italy has its differences and its similarities to American culture I noticed. Things like coffee, public transportation, and food were just a few of things pretty different from the American way. I don’t think I will ever be able to enjoy a Starbucks again after experiencing coffee in Italy. I thought I liked bold coffee before, but boy was I missing out! There is nothing more pleasing than a piping hot espresso in the morning, or afternoon. Milan also had an amazing public transportation system. I haven’t been to many big transportation hubs around the world, so I don’t have much to compare it with, but compared to Austin and New York, Milan was great. They had subways, trams, trains, and buses! Everything was clean and on time, for the most part. Compared to Austin, who only had some buses that run on a schedule no one can nail down and the lousy train thing, Milan blows it out of the water. Speaking of water, I really didn’t like how we had to pay for water everywhere we went. I don’t even want to think about how many euros I spent on the water. The food was as expected for me, tons and tons of pasta! I think I have reached my pasta quota for at least six months. Walking down the aisles at the store I remember thinking, “wow, it really is just pasta everywhere.” I thought that I ate a lot of pasta at home, but not compared to the Italians. Luckily, I did manage to find some other yummy meals to balance out my pasta intake.

It would be silly of me not to talk about how design in Italy impacted me since the class is all about design! I have taken away so much from this course. I never really had an interest in product or furniture design, but after learning about all of it in Italy, I am curious on how I can spin it my own way back here at UT. My head is spinning with inklings of senior design projects now! My favorite thing about Italian design is how they look at everything. They analyze, observe, and think differently. I don’t want to say more creatively, but in a different way, maybe more holistically is the word I’m looking for. Something that I think describes the Italian way of design thinking is, “unusual uses for ordinary things.” They have a knack for flipping things on the side and making a chair out of it!! I hope to take that way of thinking back with me in my design studies, for sure.

During our last week and short trip to Treviso, we stopped at type museum and workshop, Tipoteca. As a designer who loves good type, I was fangirling hardcore over all their letterpresses! At UT we have a few, but they had a monotype, linotype, and so many others I had never heard of before. We even got to make a poster collaboratively, commemorating our fantastic trip. We decided on a design that said the name of the course, “Design in Context,” but instead in Italian, which turns out to be Design in Contesto. Thank you, Jessica, for the translation!! Then we put names of all the designers that we saw while studying in Milano, in the background. I was really pleased with how it turned out!

We picked out the typefaces, and colors, which took a while. It was the first time that all of us worked on an actual design together. The wonderful typographers of Tipoteca were patient with our large group of 16! Tipoteca was an amazing experience and I think that Kevin and Carma from UT would have gone crazy there as much as all of us did!

Our last week in Milan was a short one, and we really weren’t in Milan for it. We took a bus to the city of Treviso, Italy. There we saw the wonderful Fabrica, a client work/research-based center of design. It’s kind of like a school, but not really a school, since they don’t teach you from the ground up, you have to have a good design foundation. They had a beautiful campus out in the middle of nowhere almost. They had just had their 22nd reunion and were very proud that over 400 past Fabrica students came back to celebrate.

Fabrica has three sections that a student can choose to focus on: editorial, design, and social campaigns. To come and research at Fabrica you must be under 25 years old, and apply online with a portfolio. If chosen, then you go and work for 2 weeks for a trial period and then if they want to keep you on, you stay for a year and everything is paid for, housing, tuition, and a stipend. Sounds like a good deal to me!

When we walked into Fabrica, we noticed how many students were buzzing about the halls, discussing their projects. There were a group of American students that were there working with Fabrica students in collaboration on a project. They had post-it notes all over the wall and were discussing ideas for a campaign. Fabrica has so many resources available to students. They have a beautiful spiral library, full of design books, my dream come true. She called it a “small” library but it was plenty big for me! I could have spent days in that library. Our guide also led us around the three different sections of Fabrica. We saw groups at work and past projects. They seemed pretty proud of their social campaign department. They work with the UN on several projects, including one against violence on women. I thought their work was well-designed and powerful.

Treviso was a great little town that we stayed in during our visit. It was fun for all of us to be in a hotel together for a night. A small group of us ventured out for some food and happened upon a little pizzeria. It was good and cheap! My wallet was thanking me, after all the spending I have been doing on this trip!

 

On Friday, we visited Fondazione Vico Magistretti. I wasn’t sure what to expect because I had heard his name in discussions but I hadn’t put his work to the name yet. That’s one reason why I loved going to the Foundations! It helps make those connections so I can be like, “ah! I saw this at Artemide too!” In my head I was making all these connections from my past sketches to our trip to the Fondazione.

Vico’s grandaughter, Margherita, gave us a tour of his studio and talked about his work with anecdotes about his process sprinkled throughout. He was an architect and a designer, but called himself an architect foremost. While we were visiting we peeked at the exhibition of his architecture and building sketches. His granddaughter told us about how he never used a computer, only drew by hand. The only technology they had was a fax machine, and I think that was probably a fight his assistant had to put up!

I really enjoyed seeing all of his chairs in the studio. It gave me tons of content for my sketchbook!! My favorite chair was the saddle chair. I liked the quote that Margherita used to describe his inspiration: “using the usual in an  unusual way.” Vico took the shape and form of a saddle, turned it sideways and used it as a back and arm rest for an office chair! It was surprisingly very comfortable.

*picture coming soon!

His granddaughter said he was quite the snob (haha) but a really nice man. He left behind a great legacy!

This was my first trip semi-alone. Well, alone for the first half of the first day. I booked my train ticket extra early so I could pack in as much as possibile because I was only staying one night. I was a bit nervous about traveling by myself since I had never done that before. But I was so excited once I got there! So excited that I accidentally texted my mom telling her how excited I was at 2:30 am Texas time! I also told her I was alone, so she had a hard time going back to sleep. Sorry mom!

I started out with a bus tour that just went around the city. It was only about an hour long, but gave me some context of the history behind Florence. It is definitely not a design oriented city like Milan is, rather it has a lot of art historical hubs. The Uffizi Gallery is located in Florence, and houses many of the great works of art of Europe.

One thing I noticed right away, was how small Florence is! It’s a tiny city! I could walk from the train station to the Duomo in about 10 min! And that is like wring across the city. That would not be doable in Milan for sure. But, I loved that aspect of Florence. It made seeing a lot of sights in one day easy and not stressful. I went to the leather market at Piazza San Lorenzo, which was magnificent! That was probably the most design-related area of the city. There were hundreds of leather bags, jackets, shoes and belts down this one street. I felt like it never ended! Of course, I had to buy a bag, I even haggled a bit!

After my fun half day of wandering around the city by myself I meet up with some of the girls. We walked around the city some more until we decided to break off into smaller groups and do our own exploring. Florence has a much different feeling than any of the other Italian cities that I have been to this month. It has a certain charm that I didn’t feel in Rome and don’t feel in Milan. Maybe it was the size, or maybe it was because it is mainly a tourist city, filled to the brim with museums. I love Milan, but Florence had a different, almost magical feel to it. It didn’t have the hustle and bustle feel that Milan and Rome had.

I have already decided that I have to go back to Florence. I didn’t get to see everything I wanted to, but that is okay, because it gives me an excuse to come back!

I am so happy with how my sketchbook has turned out so far. My focus on chairs has been so fun. At first I wasn’t sure that I would enjoy it, but once I realized how many different kinds of chairs there were, it became exciting for me. Pretty much every designer or architect has designed a chair in some point in their life, so there are a lot to draw. We went to two furniture design showrooms, Cassina and B&B Italia. I loved being able to sit in the chairs as well as draw them. Some of them are quite comfy! It was nice to feel the materials the chairs were made of; it gave me nice context for the notes in my notebook. These show rooms gave me a lot of content for my sketchbook!!

One thing I like about drawing chairs is learning about the history behind the designs through analyzing them in my drawings. For the chairs that I don’t know the history of, I can sometimes assume what their story or purpose might be. so chairs were inspired by architecture, others buy objects, and some just because!

This past weekend a group of us spent the weekend in Rome! It’s very different from Milan, I must say. The public transportation is not nearly as well designed as Milan’s. The city has a different feeling that Milan. Tourists are wandering around everywhere, and there are ancient ruins on every corner. I guess it might be difficult to build a modern city around an ancient city. The metro was confusing.

The metro was confusing. They used the same “M” as Milan to indicate an underground stop, and similar signage, but the layout was not intrinsic. We couldn’t figure out which line we were going into when we entered, and just hoped we would see the stop we needed on the map. And this was not attributed to human error! Underground was not as well lit, or open as Milan’s Metro. The metro cars were jammed packed. I see why they say to watch your bags in Rome.

Rome was a beautiful city, though. I wasn’t sure what to imagine since I’ve only ever seen Rome through a screen in films. The history was rich and I loved imagining what life might have been like in Caesar’s time. Although I must say, Milan has a special space in my heart!

This was by far my favorite exhibition that we have been to thus far. This exhibition was especially important and memorable to me because it gives me validation and representation as a woman in design as well. Although I may not be 100% Italian, I was excited and proud to see this exhibition so prominent at the Triennale. Since design has been, and in some cases, still is dominated by men and the male perspective, it gave me great joy to see women represented at such a level. To have a whole exhibition solely focused on women in design is a powerful movement for the design world.  Many times in the past, women’s work was subsumed under a male peer’s name, withholding the recognition women deserved.

The beginning of the exhibition immediately caught my attention. I was so pleased to see so much craft work, so much design with fibers!! I, myself am an avid crocheter (that’s with a hook, not two needles), and was overjoyed by giant doilies hanging from the ceiling, and various crochet sculptural objects on display.

My mind was going a hundred miles an hour after walking through the first part of the exhibit. I was thinking of all the ways that I could incorporate crocheting, yarn, and fibers into my senior design project. The validation that came from seeing something that I only thought as my hobby, in a museum, was inspiring.

After that experience walking through the dark room with my favorite things in it, I came into a large and airy hallway type room that showcased hundreds of designs from women. I never knew that so much design came out of Italian women! My mind now was thinking about so many things! If these women did it, and it’s in a museum, then I can do it for my senior project, surely.

Overall, this made my inner feminist leap with joy that these women achieved such recognition for their talents and innovations. I believe that the society we live in now is getting better about giving credit where it is due, but it could still use some improved. Way to take a step in the right direction, Triennale! Brava!

 

We visited the Alessi Factory and Museum. We had a fantastic and thorough tour of the archives, or what they call the “museum.”  They had rows and rows of every product they’ve ever made. Including the prototypes, and final products. There were even some items that never saw production. I loved seeing the process the designers for Alessi go through to get to the final result.

Alessi mainly focuses on home goods, especially kitchen products. Their showroom, which greeted us when we walked in, was vast and full of their favorite collections. It showed the evolution of Alessi products nicely.

One thing that I enjoyed hearing about was their failures. Their failures helped them become the company they are today. Without their biggest flops, they would not be as creative, as design oriented or as innovative. They took leaps of faith and took on projects that were not the usual Alessi projects. For example, they started working with artist’s to make affordable art for the home. They were hand designed objects that were supposed to be put in production, but ultimately never were. Alessi worked with Dali to create a designed object for the home, but the project was shut down before it hit the production line. Failure = future success for Alessi!