DESIGN AND COUNTER DESIGN AGAINST CONSUMPTION: 1972 “ITALY, THE NEW DOMESTIC LANDSCAPE” EXHIBITION

Abstract

Architects and designers have debated consumerism and its effect on the production and design of cultural content since Adorno and Horkheimer first claimed in their 1947 essay “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” that culture and cultural products became commodities of the constant reproduction and legitimization progress of capitalism and industrial society. Nevertheless, the discussions have never been as intense as in the 1960s and 1970s European intelligentsia, when the economic boom amplified the controversial progress of mass production and consumption. One of the first instances of this highly critical and political intellect’s dissemination on the other side of the ocean was through the 1972 cutting-edge exhibition “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape” (INDL), held in the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA, NY), which had broad repercussions on the architecture and design circles of the day in both continents; hence has a tremendous impact on that of today beyond dispute. The young Argentinean architect and designer Emilio Ambasz (1943-), the Design Curator of MoMA, curated the exhibition to introduce American society to the rising star of Italian design through “objects” he collected and “environments” designed and produced solely for this exhibition. Identifying Italian design as the precursor of a unique, colorful, sensuous, and “hedonistic” style, Ambasz aimed to “honor” a selected repertoire in New York and analyze the “diversity” behind responses DESIGN AND COUNTER DESIGN AGAINST CONSUMPTION: 1972 “ITALY, THE NEW DOMESTIC LANDSCAPE” EXHIBITION (1)