Piero Bottoni, casings for radio sets, 1932-1936

Abstract

Piero Bottoni (1903-1973) is among the protagonists, in the inter-war period, of the circularity between architectural, interior and industrial product design. The latter saw him involved in attempts to spread the topic of serialised objects and equipment for the home in Italy. From his attempts to convince the Paleari company to put into production furniture intended for social housing, to the Casa elettrica at the 1930 Triennale, to the elastic seats combining tubular steel and Pirelli foam rubber for Columbus, to the prototypes for Thonet, to the project conducted independently for the Pneumatic Sole Shoe (1938), Bottoni emerges as one of the designers most sensitive to the relationship between design and industrialisation. Starting with the Bottoni Archive held at the Politecnico di Milano, the essay sets out to explore a little-known design field in which there is a strong link between the formal and the technological: radio sets. In addition to the rediscovery of collaborations with specialised companies, this particular type of theme is a clue to the first reasoning on the envelope and interface.