Founded in 1951, the International Design Conferences in Aspen (IDCA) were a forum that brought together the most prominent figures of American design—as well as industrialists and foreign delegations—to discuss and share developments in the related fields of the graphic arts, industrial design, and architecture. Covering an ample disciplinary spectrum, the conferences touched on artistic, political and ideological topics. In this conversation with professor Elena Dellapiana and curator Francesca Picchi, we revisit the 1981 and 1989 conferences in order to further understand their impact on contemporary Italian design.
This interview was developed as part of the media partnership with Dropcity Convention 2023, winner of the public call Festival Architettura - 2nd edition, promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
KOOZ The brainchild of Chicago businessman Walter Paepcke (President of the Container Corporation of America), the International Design Conference in Aspen (IDCA) followed the basic philosophy of the Bauhaus. For its first edition, the former Bauhaus master teacher Herbert Bayer attracted an important group of businessmen—including Frank Stanton, President of CBS, William Connally of Johnson Wax, Stanley Marcus of Nieman Marcus—as well as designers like Josef Albers, Charles Eames, Louis I. Kahn amongst others. Representing both the business and design worlds in equal measure, how did the forum seek to catalyse both the production and consumption of the design industry in the United States?
ELENA DELLAPIANA The strength and uniqueness of the IDCA was the disciplinary cross fertilisation it sought to achieve by bringing together high-level creative languages, including experimental music and characters such as John Cage. Although Paepcke was indeed a significant financial supporter of Black Mountain College, and one could say that the IDCA was infrastructurally structured according to the original European Bauhaus model, the American “version” significantly differed from the European model in its most important characteristic: its ideology.
"The strength and uniqueness of the IDCA was the disciplinary cross fertilisation it sought to achieve." - Elena Dellapiana
Surprisingly, the International Design Conferences held in Aspen from 1951 to the 1990’s have not been thoroughly studied and it is thus hard to exactly measure their impact locally and/or globally. Nonetheless, in my opinion, the effects of the IDCA’s were much more felt at an international level rather than within the American context. There are, of course, a number of very compelling, almost anecdotal stories, which emerge from Aspen. One of the most famous revolves around apple’s founder, Steve Jobs, and how his attendance to the almost “vaudeville” conference by Achille Castiglioni in 1989 is said to have enticed him to move away from the German “Dieter Rams” computer case model and shift towards a more playful approach. Indeed, four to five years after the conference in Aspen, Apple launched the Apple blueberry computer with its iconic cartoon-like design. The rest is history.
"The effects of the IDCA’s were much more felt at an international level rather than within the American context." - Elena Dellapiana
KOOZ The conference explored a number of topics ranging from “Design as a Function of Management” (1951) to “Environment by design” (1970) and also national perspectives as "GESTALT: Visions of German Design” (1990). How do the conference themes and speakers provide an insight into the issues and major players at the forefront of graphic, industrial, and architectural design over its almost 55 years of life?
ED Although partially secluded within the mountains of Colorado, the conferences did indeed respond to the wider preoccupations and issues society was facing. The IDCA must thus be analysed through this lens rather than as a culture of design in and of itself. Although the first years of the conference were very much characterised by a secular approach—as put forth by Paepcke’s motto of “good design is good business”, as well as by icons of American design such as Raymon Loewy with his “ugly design does not sell”—this approach was soon overturned following Paepcke’s death, when a board which was directed by members of prestigious universities such as the Cooper Union, the Yale school of Architecture, amongst others took over.
Differently to the initial IDCA, the 1970’s conferences responded to the counterculture movement of the time and, in particular, the 1970 edition titled “Environment by Design” brought together and was challenged by venerable figures from the environmental movement such as the French Jean Baudrillard. During those years—and contrary to the interests of the IDCA organisers—the conferences became occasions for augmented ideological debates amongst the participants but also the audience, which frequently included university students.
"With the ambition of avoiding politics, the following editions shifted their attention from ideology to a more pragmatic approach." - Elena Dellapiana
With the ambition of avoiding politics, the following editions shifted their attention from ideology to a more pragmatic approach, focusing on other nations and countries. The editions of the 1980’s saw the participation of countries as Japan in Japan in Aspen (1979), Italy with The Italian Idea (1981), the countries north and south of the states with Neighbors: Canada,USA & Mexico (1984) and the United Kingdom with Insight and Outlook: Views of British Design (1986) etc. Quite significant in the attempt of the organisers to avoid political controversy was the halt of the publication of all the conference proceedings after the 1970 edition, which had been made possible by the advent of technology and the birth of the audio cassette.
KOOZ The 1981 and 1989 editions—titled respectively The Italian Idea and The Italian Manifesto or The Culture Of The 999 Cities—were dedicated to Italian design and brought together participants as Alberto Alessi Anghini, Emilio Ambasz, Gae Aulenti, Mario Bellini, Andrea Branzi, Achille Castiglioni, Peter Eisenman, Aldo Rossi, Joseph Rykwert, Ettore Sottsass and Aurelio Zanotta amongst others. In what ways did those forums build upon the seminal exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape held a few years prior at MoMA by Emilio Ambasz? What were for you the legacies of these moments of cross fertilisation?
ED The three events are, of course, all tied to each other. The exhibition by Emilio Ambasz at MoMA in 1972 was a huge bet, very much guided by Italian investments with the aim of opening Italy towards the USA. Although maybe not entirely understood by the American public, Ambasz also wanted the exhibition to highlight the discontinuity and conflicts embedded within Italian culture at the time. The exhibition design thus distinguished between the commercial “Objects” positioned within the vitrines in the garden and the highly politicised “Environments” housed within the museum galleries. Highly criticised by the American press—to the point that the vitrines were dubbed as almost creating a “sukh” like environment—in hindsight, the exhibition came to be seen as the epitome of Italian design, whilst also signalling its demise. In an interview released a few years later Ettore Sottssas himself said that after 1972 “Little happened. If not nothing.”
"Highly criticised by the American press in hindsight, the exhibition came to be seen as the epitome of Italian design." - Elena Dellapiana
FRANCESCA PICCHI Yes one could say that the exhibition at MoMA was both the celebration and conclusive act of that period of Italian radical research.
Whilst the conference “The Italian Idea” held in 1981 occurred too early to be able to recount the creative vitality that was emerging and that indelibly characterised the 1980s and the Italian avant garde, the 1989 Conference looked with great curiosity at the linguistic experimentation and freedom of those years.
It is no accident that the 1989 Conference was inaugurated by Memphis’s founder Ettore Sottass, who used this limelight to introduce a young Michele De Lucchi (who also worked alongside him at Olivetti) entrusting him with the task of narrating Memphis to all participants.The very presence of Steve Jobs in the audience not only attests to his interest in design but I think is also evidence of his admiration for Sottsass and Olivetti and for that freedom for colour and personal relationship with objects that characterised postmodernist poetics.
The conference of 1989 was an opportunity to look back on a decade of effervescent creativity, and to the transformation that the Italian scene had faced in both metabolising radical research whilst broadening the concept of function to also include emotional aspects that modernism had restricted by limiting expressive freedom.
Talking about cross fertilisation, what is interesting to notice is that, contrary to American culture in which roles are quite strict, numerous of the designers partaking in the 1989 edition were in fact architects. There is a fantastic lesson by Costantino Dardi which is titled “The influence of Architecture on Italian Industrial Design.”
"The 1989 edition can be seen as the moment which essentially crystallised Italian design as glamour, establishing a formula of the 'Made in Italy.'" - Elena Dellapiana
ED The 1989 edition can, in a certain sense, be seen as the moment which essentially crystallised Italian design as glamour, establishing a formula of the “Made in Italy”,which continues to work to date but which also signalled the ultimate emptying of ideas and establishment of this cage-like narrative which has haunted Italian designers since.
KOOZ In one of the recordings of the 1989 IDCA, Milton Glaser refers to the symbiotic and intimate relationship between designer and industrialist, whilst in an interview with Marco Sammicheli—curator of design, fashion and crafts sector at Triennale Milano and Superintendent of Museo del Design Italiano—he shared with us how “Italian design was never associated with a specific codified industry but was rather born out of the will and energy of two types of “pirates”: the designers and the entrepreneurs who boldly confronted and explored the future.” In what ways did this synergistic relationship fuel Italian design in those years and how did this differ from the American model?
ED The two approaches clearly differed and there are indeed fantastic jokes voiced by Milton Glaser who mentions that the greatest luck of Italians was that of not having the Harvard Business School.
FP Indeed Glaser’s remarks at the beginning of the “Entrepreneurs” round table, when he recalls his recent collaboration with Alberto Alessi, are quite telling. Whilst within the American model Glaser would have never dreamt of even seeing from afar the owner of a brand, the relationship with Alessi was very direct to the point that Alessi himself would question Glaser on very technical aspects of topography and graphics. Beyond Alessi the “Entrepreneurs round table” also included figures as Aurelio Zanotta and Jacqueline Vodoztogether with Bruno Danese. In particular Jacqueline and Bruno’s exploit on their close relationship with designers as Bruno Munari and Enzo Mari—which went beyond the mere commercial to engage with the friendly—is particularly interesting and relevant, as it speaks of the proximity with which both entrepreneurs and designers approached the relationship between life and design.
"Within the Italian project, the act of designing was understood as visceral, an instinct of man and an existential question." - Francesca Picchi
Within the Italian project, the act of designing was understood as visceral, an instinct of man and an existential question which was much more tied to the humanities and the individual, rather than to a process of industrial production. Beyond the culture and passion for design, numerous of the individuals who wrote the history of Italian design in those years—both as entrepreneurs and as designers—were very much interested in other arts such as photography, literature (amongst others) and very much saw themselves as proper intellectuals.
KOOZ At the Dropcity Convention 2023—which aspires to be an urban model unseen before in Europe, whose programme will host exhibition galleries, production workshops, carpentry, robotics and advanced prototyping laboratories—you specifically chose to research and exhibit the The Italian Manifesto Or The Culture Of The 999 Cities. What prompted this line of enquiry? What is the value of revisiting this specific forum and, by extension, the wider International Design Conference in Aspen within the space of Dropcity?
FP I think it’s important to unravel and resurface certain stories and narratives before they get lost and are forgotten, not as a nostalgic historic exercise but as a means of understanding contemporary design practice. Listening to the recordings of Aspen, in particular to the interventions by Ettore Sottssas and Achille Castiglioni, it is astounding to see how his arguments are still pertinent today. As a designer of the 20th century who, through his collaborations with Olivetti, witnessed and actively shaped the transition from a mechanical to technological society, the fact that both Sottssas and a very young Steve Jobs were present at the 1989 conference can almost be seen as a passing of the baton.
The beauty of the conferences, and an atmosphere that I hope we will be able to recreate at Dropcity, lay also in their quite colloquial / informal nature. For example, Sottssas’s intervention was followed by a 1h20m conversation with the audience. All conferences had an extremely significant didactic component to them: 30 years ago I had the opportunity to attend the 1989 edition as part of the exchange programme undertaken with the Politecnico of Milan and being exposed to the lessons by Glaser, Jobs, Alessi etc.
"The fact that both Sottssas and a very young Steve Jobs were present at the 1989 conference can almost be seen as a passing of the baton." - Francesca Picchi
The beauty of the conferences, and an atmosphere that I hope we will be able to recreate at Dropcity, lay also in their quite colloquial / informal nature. For example, Sottssas’s intervention was followed by a 1h20m conversation with the audience. All conferences had an extremely significant didactic component to them: 30 years ago I had the opportunity to attend the 1989 edition as part of the exchange programme undertaken with the Politecnico of Milan and being exposed to the lessons by Glaser, Jobs, Alessi etc.
ED I see this occasion as a moment in which Aspen does not necessarily need to be celebrated but rather also challenged and demystified. It is only through a critical analysis of these events and their legacy that one can fully understand how to adapt and reimagine them for contemporaneity.
"I would like this research to focus on the ideas and thoughts which shaped Italian design in its movement from radical to postmodern to today." - Francesca Picchi
KOOZ How do you imagine your research unfolding beyond Dropcity? What are your aspirations for the project in the coming future?
FP I am very much interested in unfolding the dialectic aspect of design. Beyond the object, I would like this research to focus on the ideas and thoughts which shaped Italian design in its movement from radical to postmodern to today.
Bio
Elena Dellapiana, Architect, PhD, is Full Professor of Architecture and Design History in the Department of Architecture & Design at the Politecnico di Torino (Italy). She is a scholar of architecture, town and design history of the nineteenth and twentieth century. She is one of the authors of Storia dell’architettura italiana: L’Ottocento, ed. A. Restucci (Milan: Electa, 2005); Made in Italy. Rethinking a Century of Italian Design eds. K. Fallan and G. Lees Maffey (Bloomsbury: 2013). Among her publications: Il design della ceramica in Italia 1850-2000 (Milan: Electa, 2010), Il design degli architetti italiani 1920-2000, with F. Bulegato (Milan: Electa, 2014), Una storia dell’architettura contemporanea, with G. Montanari (Torino: Utet, 2015-2020). She recently edited Museographie. Musei in Europa negli anni tra le due guerre, with M.B. Failla and F. Varallo (Sagep: Genova 2020) and Bruno Zevi. History, Criticism and Architecture after WWI, with M. Cassani Simonetti (Franco Angeli: Milano 2021; her latest book is Il Design e l’invenzione del Made in Italy, (Einaudi: Torino 2022). She is the director (with Giampiero Bosoni and Jeffrey Schnapp) of the magazine “AIS/Design Journal”, focused on design History and organ of the Italian Design Historians Association (AIS/Design)
Francesca Picchi is an architect, an independent curator and professional journalist. She is professor of Design History at ISIA, in Florence. For sixteen years she was on the editorial staff of Domus, the international magazine of architecture, art and design founded by Gio Ponti. In 2014 she participated in the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale with a research project on Italian industry with the American photographer Ramak Fazel. In 2017 for the Triennale Design Museum, the tenth edition, she curated “Design e Participation, The function of ‘more or less’ in the universe of precision”, a focus on the design method by Riccardo Dalisi. Books include: Ettore Sottsass, (Phaidon Press: London 2014), Enzo Mari: Work at the Centre (Federico Motta: Milan 1999), The Factory of Design: Conversations with the protagonists of Italian Design (Skira: Milan 2007) and Patents of Italian Design 1946 –1965, (Electa: Milano 2000). She contributes to international architectural and design publications including Architectural Record, Intramuros, AMC Architecture, Doppiozero. She lives and works in Milan (Italy).
Federica Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and digital curator whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2015 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Parallel to her work at KoozArch, Federica is Architect at the architecture studio UNA and researcher at the non-profit agency for change UNLESS where she is project manager of the research "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.
