Roberto Menghi's exhibit design for the Pirelli industry (1950-1977)

In search of a method for exhibiting and communicating industrial culture

Abstract

The collaboration between architect Roberto Menghi and the Pirelli company has brought about famous Italian design objects that have been investigated both in the pages of this magazine and elsewhere. Parallel to the industrial design pieces, Menghi has designed numerous stand projects, especially for commercial occasions and trade fairs. Many of these set-ups can be considered unpublished if we exclude the concise publications of the time, especially in the “Cronache” section of the magazine Pirelli and a more recent doctoral publication with a stringent anthological cut. Therefore, this essay’s research topic is Roberto Menghi’s intense activity as a designer in the field of trade fair exhibitions for the communication of Pirelli’s industrial culture. 
After a brief introduction to the figure of Roberto Menghi, an analysis of his industrial design projects for Pirelli will be carried out, to illustrate some key elements of Menghi’s design practice. Then, the study of exhibition stands for trade fairs from the early 1950s to the early 1970s will be illustrated. This contribution intends to analyse these projects to narrate the installations as part of a more complex and vast strategy of communicating the values of the Pirelli company. For the writing of this text reference was made to unpublished material in the Fondo Menghi held by the Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, Università di Parma (CSAC), to material from the Fondazione Pirelli, to the magazine Pirelli. Rivista di informazione e tecnica, as well as the most recent publications on Roberto Menghi and Pirelli.