4 ms·

Furniture as Comrade: Enzo Mari’s Autoprogettazione

61 points by anarbadalov 4y ago

NotYourLawyer 4y ago
First thing that came to mind: https://old.reddit.com/r/woodworking/comments/fwi9y6/i_made_homers_spice_rack_from_the_simpsons/ https://old.reddit.com/r/woodworking/comments/fwi9y6/i_made_...
l00sed 4y ago
Profesor at CMU architecture school, here. Love to see this. Our students worked on building and drawing the P, Q, R chairs designed by Mari.
andsoitis 4y ago
Article has stunning typography, legibility, layout, ad-free. A furniture website I love to visit is artemest.com, which sells many pieces that fit the Mari philosophy.
- freeone3000 4y ago
  >sells many pieces that fit the Mari philosophy Is it even possible to fit the philosophy with the purchase of the finished product? It feels like doing so misses the point entirely.
  - Ma8ee 4y ago
    He did design quite a bit of mass produced furniture too.
JasonFruit 4y ago
I don't see anything in this design approach that is inaccessible to people living in and embracing capitalism who still want to preserve in themselves a healthy humanness. People are free to manage their own desires in whatever way they choose; consumption and Jones-chasing is optional. Making an honest, useful, tangible object is both a practical and a spiritual good, and too important to be held a political hostage.
- uoaei 4y ago
  Open-source designs, by definition, exist outside of capitalism, because there is no owner of private (intellectual) property who has the ability to profit off of those designs. Capitalists can appropriate open-source designs to make them profitable, or they can leave capitalism in order to interact with those designs. Those are the options. The project more specifically also aims to teach people that the means of production can be theirs to own (their own hands and tools, perhaps with the exception that someone likely used capitalist enterprises to make those tools and raw materials available).
aredox 4y ago
The book is still published in a bilingual edition (Italian and English): https://corraini.com/it/autoprogettazione.html https://corraini.com/it/autoprogettazione.html You can also find the PDF in many places, but do support small publishers (and a paper booklet is better in the workshop anyway).
john-doe 4y ago
By the way, http://enzomari.com/ http://enzomari.com/ is one of the best portfolio websites ever made imo.
mhd 4y ago
In a similar vein, there are the Nomadic Furniture books from the 70s. https://archive.org/details/nomadicfurniture00henn https://archive.org/details/nomadicfurniture00henn
homoiconic 4y ago
A few years ago, I was feeling a bit burnt out on a software project and decided to set aside some time to build something physical that I could accomplish in a weekend. I ended up using my dad’s workshop to build the Autoprogettazione EFFE table. [0] It was such an empowering experience to be able to build a designer table with my own hands, and a breath of fresh air to be working with something tangible instead of the abstract realm of software. [0]: https://www.casatigallery.com/products/enzo-mari-table-dite-autoprogettazione/ https://www.casatigallery.com/products/enzo-mari-table-dite-... (edit: added link)

61 points by anarbadalov 4y ago

First thing that came to mind: https://old.reddit.com/r/woodworking/comments/fwi9y6/i_made_homers_spice_rack_from_the_simpsons/ https://old.reddit.com/r/woodworking/comments/fwi9y6/i_made_...

l00sed 4y ago

Profesor at CMU architecture school, here. Love to see this. Our students worked on building and drawing the P, Q, R chairs designed by Mari.

andsoitis 4y ago

Article has stunning typography, legibility, layout, ad-free. A furniture website I love to visit is artemest.com, which sells many pieces that fit the Mari philosophy.

freeone3000 4y ago
>sells many pieces that fit the Mari philosophy Is it even possible to fit the philosophy with the purchase of the finished product? It feels like doing so misses the point entirely.
- Ma8ee 4y ago
  He did design quite a bit of mass produced furniture too.

JasonFruit 4y ago

I don't see anything in this design approach that is inaccessible to people living in and embracing capitalism who still want to preserve in themselves a healthy humanness. People are free to manage their own desires in whatever way they choose; consumption and Jones-chasing is optional. Making an honest, useful, tangible object is both a practical and a spiritual good, and too important to be held a political hostage.

uoaei 4y ago
Open-source designs, by definition, exist outside of capitalism, because there is no owner of private (intellectual) property who has the ability to profit off of those designs. Capitalists can appropriate open-source designs to make them profitable, or they can leave capitalism in order to interact with those designs. Those are the options. The project more specifically also aims to teach people that the means of production can be theirs to own (their own hands and tools, perhaps with the exception that someone likely used capitalist enterprises to make those tools and raw materials available).

aredox 4y ago

The book is still published in a bilingual edition (Italian and English): https://corraini.com/it/autoprogettazione.html https://corraini.com/it/autoprogettazione.html You can also find the PDF in many places, but do support small publishers (and a paper booklet is better in the workshop anyway).

john-doe 4y ago

By the way, http://enzomari.com/ http://enzomari.com/ is one of the best portfolio websites ever made imo.

mhd 4y ago

In a similar vein, there are the Nomadic Furniture books from the 70s. https://archive.org/details/nomadicfurniture00henn https://archive.org/details/nomadicfurniture00henn

homoiconic 4y ago

A few years ago, I was feeling a bit burnt out on a software project and decided to set aside some time to build something physical that I could accomplish in a weekend. I ended up using my dad’s workshop to build the Autoprogettazione EFFE table. [0] It was such an empowering experience to be able to build a designer table with my own hands, and a breath of fresh air to be working with something tangible instead of the abstract realm of software. [0]: https://www.casatigallery.com/products/enzo-mari-table-dite-autoprogettazione/ https://www.casatigallery.com/products/enzo-mari-table-dite-... (edit: added link)