PAOLO BRAMBILLA: Will icons continue to exist? Where are we headed today?
MARIO BELLINI: The idea that the time has come when styles are finished is an idiotic one, without any historic, philosophical foundation or awareness. And I am pleased that this is the case and that design is a style. Those who are talented enough to design furnishings, objects, interiors, and homes, will continue to do so. Only projects designed by those using this talent will become icons. Things designed that represent our time and how it evolves, that lend meaning to our homes, our living spaces, and our offices, will gradually change and evolve. So when I say ‘design style’ I mean, somewhat controversially, that although this word was used to mark the end of styles, paradoxically it has actually ended up by becoming, quite rightly, the style of our times. And so it will be remembered in a hundred years’ time.
PAOLO BRAMBILLA: How has design changed in private spaces in recent years? How has our way of living changed?
MARIO BELLINI: If the question is how and if our way of living has changed, I want to immediately distinguish: the way we live, our offices, and how we co-live in our homes has changed radically. I once did a lot of research into the phenomenon of office work. I even wrote a book entitled Office Project, in which I said that the importance of being in a workspace consists of realising that you spend eight hours in this space, sitting on this chair at this so-called desk, and so much more attention should be paid to these furnishings. At that time we used the expression ‘office landscape’, and this was seen as an extraordinary innovation, but often the only response to this intuition was to add another plant or an extra screen. The real solution is not adding greenery, but ensuring that your office is a space for your entire person, not just your job. Even when you are in the office, you are living. Your chair must be comfortable. What you see around you as landscape must not be a functional abstraction. For example, I imagined that those who spent time in this space must be able to enjoy watching all those who walk past. Boring, maybe, but they must feel they are a part of a whole. Additionally, when someone comes to their workstation to have a chat, they normally find a barrier before them, invented by some genius to hide the secretary’s legs. But it prevented anyone from sitting in front of you at your desk. As a result, anyone who came to talk to you at your desk had to sit at the corner with the point of the surface in their stomach. So I invented a round attachment to add to normal, rectangular desks that I christened Planet Office. Within a month this round attachment became the must-have accessory for all office systems then in production. Everyone adopted it. I didn’t get angry because I said to myself, ‘Perhaps I have invented something meaningful’, and the meaning was that when you are an important person, those coming to see you are people, not robots, and therefore, if they want to sit and talk to you they sit around this attachment. You move a bit and your attention is focused on them. All of this was fundamental for the innovation of office space.
PAOLO BRAMBILLA: Even in our homes, the arrival of technology, especially over recent years, has changed our lifestyles, no?
MARIO BELLINI: I will pose a slightly controversial question: are we sure we are living in a different way from how the ancient Romans lived? I would say not. Go and see what excavation is revealing—they had courtyards, with covered walkways and columns, a pool of water, greenery, houses had two storeys with stairs, there were windows inside, corners where they cooked and, if they cooked, there were pans, fire, fish, etc.
And there were sofas to sit on, more like Trimalcione than nowadays, more comfortably seated. Most activities and things that they used then were the same as today, because while passing from the Roman era to today, we haven’t changed, we still have two legs, two arms, two hands, two feet, two eyes, the same intelligence. Our culture is very similar to theirs—their philosophers and literati still form the basis for European and western culture. So we need to watch what we mean when we say evolution and changes. It is also clear that everything changes because we fly in planes, we take the underground, we drive around in cars. But, you know, before the car there was the horse, there were carriages, it was the same thing. Ladies would take their carriages to show off their clothes at tea time. There’s this wonderful, really interesting novel by Marco Romano called La Città Delle Donne (The City of Women).
PAOLO BRAMBILLA: So if our home lifestyles are not changing what sense is there in re-editing a lamp from 50 years ago?
MARIO BELLINI: On this scale of values we are talking about, fifty years is five minutes. And, therefore, a lamp, an object, a piece of furniture, etc. from then and now look very alike, unless we refer to elements and plants that have undergone violent evolution. But 50 years ago, cars already existed and still exist. Perhaps there are no more carriages, but carriages were the mothers of cars; horses were the mothers of motorbikes. Even I see that I almost exaggerate in considering the great permanence of how our civilisation lives. So let’s look at it slowly and think that perhaps every 10 or 20 years all the valves flip and everything turns over. We still have jackets and shirts and ties etc. These are things that, luckily, have had and continue to have an extremely long existence.
