Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This ambitious volume covers generations of designers from Nizzoli, Ponti, Scarpa, Sottsass, and Bellini to Branzi and Zeus, and includes designs from furniture, lighting, and cars to ceramics. Artist-designer Bruno Munari's lead essay describes the growth and implications of the Italian style. Managing editor of Mono Andrea Branzi writes about the Italian "New Design"--an explanation of the multiple theories put forward in the past 20 years to explain the Italian phenomena. The book is flooded with photographs, 786 in color (but no credits). Unfortunately book designers Hitoshi Suzuki and Takashi Minoura have crowded too much into these 341 pages, bracketing good photographs with small design spots and areas of texture. The photos range from the superb to just plain misty. Biographies and an afterword close the book. Although much new material is presented here, Andrea Branzi's The Hot House: Italian New Wave Design (CH, Apr '85) contains 406 good photographs and is visually much more coherent. -J. Risley, Wesleyan University