“A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense.”
Bruno Munari was born on October 24, 1907 in Milan. He grew up in Badia Polesine, located about 70 km southwest of Venice. At the age of 25, He returned to Milan and work for his uncle. The futurism movement found by Marinetti influences him. In 1927, he displayed his work in many exhibition. In the 1930, Riccardo Castagnedi and Bruno Munari established Studio di grafica R + M. From 1939 to 1945 he worked as an art director of Tempo Magazine. While he worked in the publishing he started to design books for his children, Alberto. He found Movimento Arte Concreta (MAC), the Italian movement for concrete art with Gildo Dorfles, Gianni Monnet and Atanasio Soldati.
It’s a challenge to show of Munari’s work. His works are varying from the futurist manifestos, advertising, children book, sculpture, to lamp design. I try to showcase an overall what he does (see below). If you visit MoMa New York, you will not miss the forks that he designed in the art and design department. You can also see some of the sketches of the forks below. I am so glad that I could get some his sketches from Bruno Munari: Il Disegno, Il Design ‘s book. Most of the websites that dedicated to Munari, unfortunately is in Italian only. With all what he has done, I just want to say salute to Bruno Munari.
3 comments
Alessandro Colizzi says:
Nov 4, 2011
The reproductions above are from a catalogue of a university archive in Parma (CSAC), which holds an important collection of original artwork and printed matter designed by Munari. It’s an important source, and it was donated by the designer to the university in 1979. Unofrtunately it took the curators nearly thirty years to get it published (just to give you an idea of how things go in Italy). On a different matter, http://www.munart.org is probably the best website about his life and work, although it seems to be only in Italian. Besides a couple of good studies (by Aldo Tanchis, 1987; and Marco Meneguzzo, 1993), the existing literature on Munari is either anecdotical or sentimental, i.e. of little use in terms of information and/or reproductions. Not to indulge in selfpromotion but, after five years of assiduous research in many Italian libraries, archives, and collections, I have recently concluded a PhD dissertation on his graphic design work in the interwar period, 1928-1945. You can access it via the library of Leiden University (the Netherlands). And last week I was in New York lecturing about him at SVA, Parsons and Fordham, which I will hopefully repeat in the springtime or some time next year.
PS: your readers would benefit from some basic information about the artifacts (captions) as the reproduced artwork is not selfspeaking.
aswin sadha says:
Nov 4, 2011
Thank you for your information. Unfortunately, I didn’t know about your lecture. Please let me know if you are speaking in New York area some time next year.
Thingking Pino Tovaglia | THINKINGFORM says:
Dec 4, 2012
[...] designed corporate identities including Otagono magazine, Alfa Romeo, the Region of Lombardy (with Munari, Noorda and Sambonet), the Italian Environmenttal Foundation FAI, Alitalia, Acna and many more. He [...]