One of the keys of the success of Italy’s post-war design was having designed an industrial product like a cultural product. This humanistic approach was expressed through a dialectic relationship between the emerging Italian industry and the post-war generation of designers: a generation of intellectuals committed to changing the state of affairs. “The Human Side”, a lecture to be held at 7 p.m. on 11 October at the Italian Cultural Institute in Hamburg, will be dedicated to the relationship between designers and industry, taking by example the relationship between Ettore Sottsass and Olivetti, Gaetano Pesce and Cassina, Gio Ponti and Olivari.
The lecture (in Italian with simultaneous translation into German) will be held by Francesca Picchi and moderated by Veronica Scortecci. Francesca Picchi, an architect and journalist, was in the editorial staff of the Domus international architecture magazine from 1996 to 2012. She has curated several design exhibitions, including “Enzo Mari. Il lavoro al centro” for the Triennale di Milano in 1999. She participated in the Architecture Exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia with a research project on Italian industry.