100 Vases of Italian Design

The excellence of Italian design through 100 vases from the beginning of the last century to the present.

What, if anything, sets an “Italian” vase apart from the vast numbers of vases produced worldwide? A vase is both an everyday object and an object that lends itself to a huge variety of interpretations, a field in which Italian designers excel in terms of originality and recognizability (not to mention the inherent “sustainability” of the vase as object, typically made from the most ecological of materials, like clay or silica glass).

The intention behind 100 Vases of Italian Design is to analyse and provide a possible response to the concept of Italian style by exploring one of its most common and enduring expressions.

Materials, forms, tradition, and innovation unfold before readers’ eyes, page after page, helping them seek meaning in the challenge posed by the title: the selection comprises vases — all of which have gone into production, sometimes as a small or very small series — from the past century, from Galileo Chini to Fabio Novembre, spanning the golden era from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Introduced by the essays by Marco Meneguzzo and Enrico Morteo on the concept and the history of Italian vases, the book invites the reader to discover 100 years of materials, forms, tradition and invention.

About the Author:

Art and design historian, author and curator, Marco Meneguzzo teaches History of contemporary art and Museology and Management of exhibition systems at Accademia di Brera, Milan. He is member of the scientific committee of the official archives of Mario Schifano, Vincenzo Agnetti, Marcello Morandini, Letizia Battaglia, Ugo La Pietra and is president of the Giò Pomodoro Archive. Enrico Morteo, architect, critic and historian of design and architecture, collaborates with major international design magazines.