“Form is everything and design is death”
Enzo Mari
“Ultimately, Autoprogettazione conveys utopia not as a vision of the future to be brought about by design (a goal that, for Mari, is unachievable and whose pursuit “generates death”) but as a novel way of doing things to be put in practice in the here and now. Utopia is not a place, says Mari, but an “ethical handrail” we can hold on to “in the labyrinth of contradictions and of compromises of this world.” “By making a chair” and using the “right nail” in doing so, for example, “you can communicate a set of values” to be realized in daily life, such as responsibility, awareness, care, agency, and manual skill. Mari’s empowering message is that the state of things is already changed at the very moment we start changing our collective mindsets and habits: “the better world” is not a distant “heaven on Earth” but is the “battle that is being fought.” Only in this way can the unfulfilled project of social transformation dreamed by the avant-gardes be turned into a practical program in the present. Now that the cracks in the empire’s wall are there for everyone to see, Autoprogettazione serves above all as a reminder that the task of remaking the world is within everyone’s ability and is more urgent than ever. It is up to us to start reaching for our toolboxes.”
Francesco Milan. November 20, 2020
Enzo Mari in his studio in Milan, 1974
Enzo Mari’s furniture designs and Autoprogettazione
Enzo Mari (born April 27, 1932, in Novara, Italy–died October 19, 2020) was a noted Italian post-Modernist artist, writer, and product and furniture designer who incorporated ideas of the arts and crafts practices and of communism as an essential part of his design practice and philosophy opposing the idea that good design is a privilege for the wealthy.
Affordability was a very important objective for Mari. He always aimed at creating design objects that were intuitive, elegant, functional, low cost and that would make a personal connection with their users. During his design process, Mari would become intimately involved with the artisans and manufacturers to ensure that his objectives of functionality, quality, and cost of his designs were met. In spite of his high standards, during his career Mari built strong collaboration with numerous design shops and furniture manufacturers of the time such as Artemide, Alessi, Zanotta, Driade, and Muji.
Enzo Mari created numerous furniture designs and projects throughout his entire career. Among these are the Elisa chair and Box chair (1971), and the Sof Sof chair (1972) for Driade; the Delfina chair (1974) for Robots, winner of the Compasso d’Oro that same year; the Sumatra filing system for Danese (1976); the Tonietta chair (1985) for Zanotta, winner of the 1987 Compasso d’Oro; the Legato table (20o1) for Dirate, winner of the Compasso d’Oro that same year.
Of all of the numerous design projects along Mari’s career, Proposta per un’Autoprogettazione (Proposal for a Self-Design) occupies a special place due to its ability to deliver a message through the creation of an object. In 1974, he published the book Autoprogettazione with instructions on how to build easy-to-assemble/do-it-yourself furniture using as raw material only rough boards and nails. In the book, Enzo Mari uses the term Autoprogettazione as a concept to bring awareness of the process of “making” and design, and instructs the reader to build practical and useful furniture pieces through very simple techniques; hoping that the benefits drawn from this process of “making” would be more valuable than the object being made. That same year, in 1974, Mari and Simon (Dino) Gavina collaborated in the project Metamobile, which focused on producing a small number of tables, chairs and beds using the Autoprogettazione designs at Simon Gavina’s plant in Calcinelli di Fano. These Autoprogettazione designs made through the Metamobile project were also made using simple pine wood boards, but were to be assembled with screws, washers and nuts–as opposed to using nails as was prescribed in the do-it-your-self instructions published in the Autoprogettazione book.
Enzo Mari is a man of many fierce, incendiary proclamations. His favorite, of course, is “Design is dead.” He enjoys saying it as least once every interview. One of the last of the old Italian masters, Mari has always been an intellectual provocateur, prone to long rambling ruminations on art and design that vacillate between genuine brilliance and philosophical hot air (perhaps it’s the translation). His career began in the late 1950s, a generation behind Achille Castiglioni and Ettore Sottsass, and it’s remarkable for its output, variety, and influence. The 76-year-old seems to have designed everything but buildings (unlike Castiglioni and Sottsass, he was not trained as an architect). A recent retrospective, Enzo Mari—The Art of Design, held at the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Com-temporanea, in Turin, Italy, merely hinted at the breadth of his work. We decided to pair quotes from the elegant exhibition catalog (from interviews by Francesca Giacomelli) with samples of his seminal work, coupling the purity of his insights with the rigor of his lines. Today Mari’s no-frills aesthetic is not only a tonic for uncertain times but a stunning rebuke of his most famous proclamation. His is an enduring legacy. Design is dead, long live Enzo Mari!
On Process
This search for what is essential is still today my first thought when designing a product.
On Necessity
I am convinced that the low cost constitutes a safe perimeter for the quality of the design, if for no other reason because it forces the designer to eliminate any foolish ideas he might get: the solution of the form cannot be anything but necessary.
On Enduring
In order for a product to be continually renewed, it must be continually provided with different masks. These, as such, can only encrust a product with the overlapping of a thousand signs taken from the catalogue of universal formalism.
On Exhibition Design
When a group of objects has within it a formal quality that is the reason for their display, this must not be the justification for displays that tritely repeat the poetics of the object, or for pseudo-poetical contradiction, where what is displayed is the display itself and not the object to be displayed.
On Retrospectives
I am aware of the fact that I am like an affectionate mother with many children who might feel more love for the weakest of them. I preferred to entrust the selection of the works to a group of about twenty friends who love design, that I invited to express themselves each time solely on the basis of that which had moved them.
On Form
Form is everything. It is form that leads me to investigate, and understand, ideological and political drives.
On Formalism
The market for “design” survives on formalism. A few words on formalism. There are two kinds: that which is acknowledged and declared, and that which derives from total ignorance.
On Solving Your Own Technical Problems
If the purpose is the quality of the form, it can be no other way. Otherwise, it is just formalism.
On “Design Products”
The “design” product is substantially artisanal even if such products imply the use of costly industrial equipment. But while, as in the case of the coffee cup, these costs do not influence the final cost because of the number of cups produced, in the case of the “design” product the quantity of products that can be sold is unpredictable, minimal or at times zero. It is for this reason that they need to look in the direction of an elitist market.
On Toy Design
The shapes of toys must be based on archetypal images, and these images must be realized with the highest possible quality and not in the style of “children’s drawings.”
On Quality
The quality of form emerges regardless of the trite reasons that lie behind technique and the market, that nowadays are always influenced by the rapid transformation of ties between production, methods and what is in style.
On Collaboration
Each time I have spoken to master artisans I have done so in an attempt to design a coherence with their knowledge and at times intervening to improve it. I do the same thing with workers, but with the artisan, even if he does understand, it’s different. He might own a small shop in which to work independently, if he does not, his boss might himself be an artisan. Therefore, the premises that will allow me to transmit my knowledge of form exist. But, nearly always, because we are talking about an artistic craftsman, his references are strongly influenced by the “silly things” picked up in art institutes, and this involves the difficult task of getting rid of them.
On Quality
The quality of form emerges regardless of the trite reasons that lie behind technique and the market, that nowadays are always influenced by the rapid transformation of ties between production, methods and what is in style.
On Design Education
During the first month, my professor of painting, followed by one who taught sculpture, and then the one who taught decoration, all suggested that I chose a different course of study: I asked too many questions and was never happy with the answers I got. So I ended up taking a stage design course, and fell in love with perspective and stagecraft. On my own, I wrote a paper that I called “27 ways to plant nails.”
On Process (part II)
Like every other intellectual activity in history, [a project] can only come about by negation. I negate all that which seems to be but is not. I could continue to do so endlessly, but a project must have an outcome.
On Play
When a child is growing up, [play] is the activity needed to discover one’s potential and to learn about the world. For this reason, objects used to play with are soon abandoned by children, who go on to other things, once an experience has ended.
On Shaping Atollo
A sheet of PVC is placed in a wooden mold; hot compressed air then pushes it up against the mold so that it takes on the same shape. But the sheet has to be perforated beforehand. A rubber sheet is placed between the PVC and the mold (this is the inventive part), allowing the compressed air to produce the shape.
On Emotion
When the quality of form emerges, it goes straight to your heart. It has no need for justification.