The Responsibilities of the Architect: Mass Production and Modernism in the Work of Marco Zanuso 1936-1972
type: CreativeWork
description: The topic of this dissertation is the significance of industrial design in the work of architect Marco Zanuso (1916-2001), who lived and practiced in Milan, Italy. As a leading architect, as well as a pioneer in industrial design in the early postwar period, Zanuso was a key protagonist in the relationship of postwar Italian architecture culture to industrialization and capitalism. He is therefore an indicative figure with respect to the broader shift from Modernism to Postmodernism in architecture. Whereas previous studies of Zanuso have addressed either his architecture or his industrial design, this study traces the mutual influence of these practices in Zanuso's early work. The four chapters examine a selection of his projects to reconstruct their relationships to concurrent discourses in Italian art, architecture, and industry. In addition, the chapters show how these projects can be understood as conceptual and practical benchmarks along the way to the eventual realization of a continuum of design from small to large scale, and especially an architecture in which the serial nature of mass production would be explicit. The first chapter, whose topic is Zanuso's relationship to Italian modern architecture between the two World Wars, relates his embrace of mass-production around 1946, in essays on prefabricated architecture, to his student work in the 1930s and to his first projects during Reconstruction, emphasizing the influence of the Gruppo 7, Giuseppe Pagano, and Ernesto Nathan Rogers. The second chapter, whose topic is architecture and art, looks at Zanuso's mural-covered Viale Gorizia building and other projects, and at his involvement in the "synthesis of the arts" discourse with adherents of the Italian 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐚 ("concrete art") movement, including Gillo Dorfles, Mario Ballocco, Bruno Munari, and Gianni Dova. The third chapter identifies the mass-produced apartment complexes on Via Laveno (1963) and Via Solaroli (1965) as Zanuso's first realized exa…
abstract: The topic of this dissertation is the significance of industrial design in the work of architect Marco Zanuso (1916-2001), who lived and practiced in Milan, Italy. As a leading architect, as well as a pioneer in industrial design in the early postwar period, Zanuso was a key protagonist in the relationship of postwar Italian architecture culture to industrialization and capitalism. He is therefore an indicative figure with respect to the broader shift from Modernism to Postmodernism in architecture. Whereas previous studies of Zanuso have addressed either his architecture or his industrial design, this study traces the mutual influence of these practices in Zanuso's early work. The four chapters examine a selection of his projects to reconstruct their relationships to concurrent discourses in Italian art, architecture, and industry. In addition, the chapters show how these projects can be understood as conceptual and practical benchmarks along the way to the eventual realization of a continuum of design from small to large scale, and especially an architecture in which the serial nature of mass production would be explicit. The first chapter, whose topic is Zanuso's relationship to Italian modern architecture between the two World Wars, relates his embrace of mass-production around 1946, in essays on prefabricated architecture, to his student work in the 1930s and to his first projects during Reconstruction, emphasizing the influence of the Gruppo 7, Giuseppe Pagano, and Ernesto Nathan Rogers. The second chapter, whose topic is architecture and art, looks at Zanuso's mural-covered Viale Gorizia building and other projects, and at his involvement in the "synthesis of the arts" discourse with adherents of the Italian 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐚 ("concrete art") movement, including Gillo Dorfles, Mario Ballocco, Bruno Munari, and Gianni Dova. The third chapter identifies the mass-produced apartment complexes on Via Laveno (1963) and Via Solaroli (1965) as Zanuso's first realized exa…
author: Blakely, Shantel
language: English
keywords: Architecture, Italian, Art, Italian, Industrial design, Design, Mass production, Modernism (Aesthetics), Modern movement (Architecture), Architecture, Postmodern, Zanuso, Marco, Olivetti, Adriano, Dorfles, Gillo, 1910-2018, Ballocco, Mario, 1913-2008, Munari, Bruno, Dova, Gianni, 1925-1991
date published: 2011
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:44:14Z
provider: Columbia University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Columbia University

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.7916/D86Q245S