“A designer is planner with an aesthetic sense”. This sentence quote from Bruno Munari (Milan, 1907– Milan, 1998) who is one of the people I have been most influenced by in my design learning journey. David Reinfurt insists that "Bruno Munari is a bit too well-known in the United States for children’s books. He’s less well-known for the breadth of his work" (53). He was one of the most independent and influential figures in the history of twentieth-century international art, design, graphics, and film. Associated with the second wave of the Italian Futurist movement, and one of the founders of the Italian movement for concrete art—Movimento Arte Concreta (MAC), his multifaceted practice allowed him to contribute to all fields of the visual arts, as well as literature, poetry, and teaching. He is considered one of the protagonists of programmed and kinetic art. His works contributed fundamentals to many fields of visual arts, and much high applicability with his research on games, didactic method, movement, tactile learning, kinesthetic learning, and creativity.
Claude Lichtenstein and Alfredo Haberli depict Bruno Munari as "a life as art" (9). According to Italian Modern Art, Munari was born on 24 October 1907 in Milan, he was raised and grew up in a family with a ten year younger brother Giordano Munari. In 1913, Munari moved to Badia Polesine (Veneto), where his parents converted a small palazzo that had belonged to the dukes of Este into an inn. From the guests at the inn, this is the first time Munari has heard of futurism. He shared about this story that "and thus I began to draw, but without any knowledge, inventing" (Claude Lichtenstein & Alfredo Haberli, 274). Munari returned to Milan in 1925, his uncle found him a position as a graphic designer. Munari's career his career began budding while searching around in bookstores, he meets the futurist poet Munari meets the futurist poet Escodamé (pseudonym of Lescovich), who introduces him to Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Munari joined the second generation of Futurists (those born around 1900, including Depero, Dottori, and Soldati, and becomes especially close to Prampolini). Munari started to display his works in many exhibitions in 1927, and then he began his endless creative journey. In 1930, he worked as a graphic designer with Riccardo Castagnedi (Ricas), and from 1938 until 1943, he worked as a graphic designer for Mondadori, as well as for two of Mondadori’s magazines, Tempo Magazine, and Grazia. It was during this period that Munari created advertising collages for magazines and created sculptures and his abstract-geometrical works, but it was also the time when he strengthen his love for writing and publishing. After World War II, Munari became disillusioned by Italian Futurism due to its Fascist tones and decided to disassociate himself from it, and in 1948, Munari, along with Gillo Dorfles, Gianni Monnet, and Atanasio Soldati founded the Movimento Arte Concreta (MAC). It is during this time, the late 1940s and 1950s, that Munari developed a strong and playful style, away from a purely futurist or constructivist influence; a truly modernist style that is skeptical about futurist ideas, an approach that explores new materials and times defies logic, and that is much more narrative. Later in his life, Munari became increasingly interested in the design and publication of children’s books, as well as in designing toys, though he had been producing books for children since the 1930s. For his books, he often used textured and tactile surfaces, and cutouts to facilitate the teaching about touch, movement, and color through kinesthetic learning.
One of typical Munari's works can be specifically mentioned in his "useless machines", which represents a completely different understanding of technology and its function in the modern age. Although associated with the Futurism movement at the time, this work went quite further and was more in line with other major trends such as Russian Constructivism or Bauhaus. These are objects hung in the style of Man Ray's famous lampshade, Munari thought that instead of drawing squares, triangles, and other geometric shapes that still give a realistic feel, why not liberate abstract forms from still paintings and hang them in the air, piecing them together so they could live in the environment with us. With "useless machines", he was interested in exploring the constant time-space, how to make the work of art could interact with the environment and change accordingly. Making art to become truly dynamic, Munari was one of the first in Europe to create kinetic art which has become a dominant trend all over the world in the '50s and '60s. What's interesting about these sculptures is that they're built with very light materials like paper, thin wooden slats, and silk thread. I agree that design is an experimental process which means we must experiment until figuring out the best way to jump into. Thus, I was inspired by Munari when he constantly experiments. He experimented with so many things that he became his own, and completely different from anything else out there.
"The designer of today re-establishes the long-lost contact between art and the public, between living people and art as a living thing", this quote from Design as Art is Munari’s 1966 book of essays bringing together his thoughts and musings on design and art. It is also one of my favorite design books and I often refer back to it for inspiration. Munari insisted that design be beautiful, functional, and accessible, and this interesting book sets out his ideas about visual, graphic, and industrial design and the role it plays in the objects we use every day. Some of the subjects to which he turns his illuminating gaze such as lamps, road signs, typography, posters, children's books, advertising, cars, and chairs. The book made me think more about how to see the world and how to make forms from many things around us. Draw A Tree is Munari's illustrated book for children which I am fond of and was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s centuries-old diagrammatic study of tree growth. According to Maria Popova notes that "Munari — who made some wildly inventive 'interactive' picture-books before the Internet was born and who saw graphic literacy as the bridge between living people and art as a living thing." Observing the transformation of the tree and illustrating them through drawings has opened my mind about how to observe things around me and make new things out of them.
In sum up, Bruno Munari was among the most inspirational designers of all time, described by Picasso as “the new Leonardo.” His works are ahead of their time and have high learning value. He is also the person who has inspired and influenced a lot in my design style.
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Works cited
“Bruno Munari”. Casati Gallery. https://www.casatigallery.com/designers/bruno-munari/, Accessed 15 November 2022.
“Bruno Munari: The Child Within”. Italian Modern Art. https://www.italianmodernart.org/exhibition/bruno-munari-the-child-within/, Accessed 15 November 2022.
Lichtenstein, Claude & Haberli, Alfredo. A Visual Reader on Bruno Munari. 1st ed, Lars Müller Publishers, 2001.
Munari, Bruno. Design As Art. Illustrated ed, Penguin Classics, 2019.
Popova, Maria. “Drawing a Tree: Uncommon Vintage Italian Meditation on the Existential Poetics of Diversity and Resilience Through the Art and Science of Trees”, The Marginalian. https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/11/05/drawing-a-tree-bruno-munari/, Accessed 15 November 2022.
Reinfuirt, David. A *New* Program for Graphic Design. Inventory Press/D.A.P, 2019.
