Enzo Frateili. Iconographic Research Notes Among Design History

Abstract

“A particular remote contact” links the two figures of Enzo Frateili and Giampiero Bosoni: both are involved – during the years between 1985-1988 – in iconographic researches for the editing of their texts dedicated to design history. Frateili updates his book Il disegno industriale italiano, 1928-81 (already published in 1983) with a new edition concerning a better finished iconographic selection; Bosoni collaborates with Vittorio Gregotti to the book Il disegno del prodotto industriale, Italia 1860-1980, published in 1983. The essay seeks to bring again attention to the topic of iconographic research in the field of design history. Starting from a reconstruction of personal relationships and collaborations weaved between renewed historians (Frateili, Gregotti, Maldonado) and “new blood” collaborators (Peretti, Antonietti), the essay underlines the urgency of updating the way of doing images’ critical research, among design historians community, during the ‘80s. A work that was laborious and full of gaps at that time. Frateili contributed with a decision to spread the concept that images had to be considered relevant for object interpretation, in order to synthesize its research and theorizing its specific value, as a testimony able to tell a story.