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Renato De Fusco's History of Design: Reduction and Artifice

Keywords: Renato De Fusco, Neapolitan School, Design History, History of Architecture, Ideal type

Abstract

The History of Design by Renato De Fusco (1984) is, more than thirty years after its publication, still the only reference text for students and enthusiasts that is truly widespread in Italy. Such great diffusion among Italian readers makes it the “first” of its kind, if we use the literal translation of the word “classic”. But if the quantitative criterion is not sufficient to label a work as a classic, a further reason is the fact that the method of analysis and synthesis developed by the author is configured as a transmissible and repeatable system, out of the chronological contingency, allowing to include it among the models of recognized value and therefore worthy of being repeated.
The paper aims to reconstruct, through the cultural and professional experiences of its author and the relationships interwoven with the various cultural and disciplinary fields, the reasons for a critical and editorial fortune that continues to fuel the debate among specialists, but that remains – today – the only attempt made in Italy to fully order and schematize the history of design.

Author Biography

Elena Dellapiana, Politecnico di Torino

Architect, PhD, is Associate 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, with several papers and books on Italian and European architects and on the transmission of architectural culture in art academies, applied arts museums, the discussion about historical sources and historicism. In 2013 she collaborated to Made in Italy. Rethinking a Century of Italian Design edited by K. Fallan and G. Lees Maffei (Bloomsbury). She is one of the authors of Storia del’architettura italiana: L’Ottocento edited by A. Restucci (Milan: Electa, 2005) and a member of several research groups. Among her recent publications: Il design della ceramica in Italia (1850-2000) (Milan: Electa, 2010) and Il design degli architetti italiani 1920-2000, with F. Bulegato (Milan: Electa, 2014). With G. Montanari, Una storia dell’architettura contemporanea (Torino: Utet, 2015).

Published
2019-03-18