From Celluloid to Bio Plastic

150 Years of Experiments on Materials Through the Mazzucchelli 1849 Company

Keywords: Cellulose Acetate, Plastic Design, Polymers and Art, Rhodoid, SIC-Italian Celluloid Society

Abstract

Through the reconstruction of the salient passages in the history of Mazzucchelli 1849, the outlines of the evolution of plastic materials and their relationship with the changing society are traced. It is an illustrative story of Italian “know-how” that begins with the processing of the horn, replaced by Celluloid – of which Mazzucchelli with the Italian Celluloid Society was the first producer – then by Rhodoid and more performing polymers.
These are cutting-edge material experiments that intertwine with the stories of some of the major Italian companies of the golden years of Made in Italy, with great designers, with the Compasso d'Oro and with the stories of numerous artists at which the company, in the name of the union between art and industry, asked to search for new applications of synthetic materials.

First published in AIS/Design. Storia e Ricerche, vol. 2, n. 4, 2014.

Author Biography

Cecilia Cecchini, Sapienza Università di Roma

Architect, PhD, Professor of Industrial Design at the “Sapienza” University of Rome, Faculty of Architecture. Founder (2007) and director of the Master in “Exhibit & Public Design”. She was coordinator of the Degree Course in Industrial Design (2008-2012). Since its foundation (2008) he has been scientific curator of the Plart Foundation of Naples (Plastic + Art + Design). He carries out scientific and experimental research at the PDTA Department on innovation in the field of materials and technologies and on exhibit design issues. He has coordinated and directed research and projects in these areas on behalf of public and private entities, with particular reference to polymeric materials. Among his publications: Le parole del design. 150 lemmi tecnici liberamente scelti (LISt lab, 2012) selected by the ADI Design Index 2013; Mo’… Moplen. Il design delle plastiche negli anni del boom; Plastiche i materiali del possibile (Alinea 2004).
Cecilia Cecchini died prematurely in January 2021.

Published
2022-09-05
Issue
Vol 9 No 16 (2022): A Repertoire for our History of Design
Section
Research

Copyright (c) 2022 Cecilia Cecchini

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons NonCommercial-NoDerivates 4.0 international License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).