{"id":21649,"date":"2012-05-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dmh.org.il\/articles\/must-be-happy-milan-2012\/"},"modified":"2021-12-05T09:48:33","modified_gmt":"2021-12-05T09:48:33","slug":"must-be-happy-milan-2012","status":"publish","type":"mt_article","link":"https:\/\/www.dmh.org.il\/en\/articles\/must-be-happy-milan-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Must Be Happy | Milan 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a recent interview for Australian Design Review, British design critic Alice Rawsthorn attempted to answer the question: “What is good design?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent interview for Australian Design Review<\/a>, British design critic Alice Rawsthorn attempted to answer the question: “What is good design?””What is and isn’t good design has preoccupied designers, design critics and commentators for many decades”, she said, “and I think what’s interesting about it is how our perceptions of good design have changed over the years. But if you look at what are absolutely non-negotiable qualities of any good design project, number one, it’s got to work, it’s got to fulfill its function. Increasingly, it has also got to be easy to use […] A huge and very positive change in perceptions in recent years is what you could call \u2018the guilt factor’, which equates to ethical and environmental responsibility. If we have the slightest reason to feel guilty about any aspect of the way that something has been designed, developed, made, sold, shipped, or will eventually be disposed of, it can’t be deemed to be good design”.In the book she’s been working on, says Rawsthorn, she examines how society’s expectations of design are changing, from the Industrial Revolution, which professionalized design, but also curbed and constrained it, through the years during which design was seen as a commercial tool, very much a lackey of consumerism steeped in conspicuous consumption, to the new breed of social designers who are applying design thinking and the design process to reinvent critical areas of social services.Discussions on the changes occurring in the role of design take place in numerous conferences all over the world, but seem to almost completely bypass the biggest and most prestigious exhibition, namely Salone del Mobile<\/a> in Milan, which designer Jasper Morrison recently suggested should be renamed \u2018Salone del Marketing’.Perhaps it is the difficult years of the recession, which have not left the design industry untouched, that are now making their mark. According to Cosmit, which organizes and runs Salone del Mobile, the data indicate a decline in visitors from 334,673 in 2010 to 321,320 in 2011.While this is a slight decline, it is gradual and steep relative to 2008 that had a record 383,793 visitors. There are, of course, fewer exhibitors as well, and the number of new objects companies are showing in the exhibition is also lower. Perhaps it is the collaborations, which are closer today than ever before, between commercial companies that are not necessarily furniture manufacturers that engage in intensive sales promotions and show misrepresentations of quality design.It was hard to ignore the feeling that very few companies showed new directions or interesting trends this year, but most of them took part in a kind of carnival atmosphere of almost forced merriment, glaring fluorescent colors, childish furniture, and basic forms. Everybody must be happy.This applies to the strange showing by Lenny Kravitz for Kartell who covered a Philippe Starck \u2018Mademoiselle chair’ in snakeskin; and it also applies to Tom Dixon’s design space at Milan’s Museum for Science and Technology where the permanent exhibits – such as a huge attack submarine – were considerably more interesting than the exhibition curated by Dixon.Nevertheless, there were some companies that overshadowed all the rest and managed to attract the eyes and the heart. At the Triennale di Milano exhibition, Fabrica<\/a>, Benetton’s communication research centre, mounted two interesting exhibitions. One presented a series of spectacular new store display fittings made from wood, metal, and Perspex in blue, yellow, red, and green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Emanuele Tortora – FABRICA <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Emanuele
Emanuele Tortora – FABRICA <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ikea, which does not regularly show at Salone del Mobile, presented its new PS collection under the slogan: \u2018Design Belongs in Real Homes’. The complete environments it showed highlighted another recent trend – design of a complete environment that provides a sense of a small, formulated world that can tell a whole, non-fragmentary story. Ikea also launched a website, PS At Home<\/a>, where it invites visitors to upload images of items from the collection as they look in ordinary homes. The result is much less colorful and inspiring than Ikea’s exhibition, but faithful to the exhibition’s slogan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ikea Collzione, 2012 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Ikea
Ikea Collzione, 2012 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Ikea
Ikea Collzione, 2012 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ikea, a company that manages to evoke interest time and time again in the way it advertises itself, did so this time as well. Under the slogan \u2018People Bring Design to Life’, inspired by iconic graffiti artist Banksy, dozens of graffiti artists swooped down on the city and pasted stenciled black and white posters and slogans on Milan’s subway walls, stairs, and floors.<\/p>\n\n\n