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Milan's anarchic modernist

Article · March 2013

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Alessandro Colizzi
Politecnico di Milano
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MILAN’S
ANARCHIC
MODERNIST
Alessandro Colizzi explores the
Futurist past of Bruno Munari,
the eclectic, prolific designer-
illustrator of Mussolini’s Italy.
1

1. Cover of Natura VI no.

1, January 1933. 260mm ×
340mm – a photomontage
influenced by the work of
Herbert Bayer. Biblioteca
Comunale Centrale
Palazzo Sormani, Milan.
2 (opposite). Portrait of
Munari by fellow designer
Albe Steiner, 1941. Archivi
Storici, Archivio Albe e
Lica Steiner, Politecnico
di Milano.

36 Eye 85/13 Eye 85/13 37

 3
3. Cover of La Rivista 4. Cover from Almanacco
Illustrata del Popolo antiletterario Bompiani
d’Italia XII 3, 1934. 1937. Milan: Bompiani,
245mm × 335mm. 1936. 210mm × 285mm.
During his decade-long Munari’s cover design for
collaboration with the the 1937 edition of this
regime’s monthly popular literary review
supplement, Munari accompanies a polemical
alternated between more call for a return to
sophisticated seriousness — reflecting
illustrations and the changing political
propagandistic covers climate after the
modelled on pictorial annexation of Ethiopia
realism. His first cover left Italy in international
seems to be an attempt to isolation.
integrate photomontage
with traditional
illustration. Biblioteca
Comunale Centrale
Palazzo Sormani, Milan.

4 5

5. Studio Boggeri logo 6 (opposite). Cover of

(original artwork), L’Ala d’Italia, April 1934.
1933. 150mm × 100mm. 210mm × 280mm.
Boggeri had originally This radical
commissioned a logo photomontage
(a red Didot ‘B’ between announcing the
two black dots) from the forthcoming Aeronautics
advertising office of the Show features the profile
Parisian foundry Deberny of an aircraft in which
& Peignot. Possibly typographic elements
aiming for a trademark and aerial views of the
that reflected Palazzo dell’Arte
photography’s (Giovanni Muzio’s
importance in the studio’s brand-new building for
work, Munari designed the Triennale) and the
a new logo, based on the nearby Torre della Radio
principle of the camera (by Ponti) are collaged.
obscura. In 1934 the logo Biblioteca Comunale
was integrated into a Centrale Palazzo
letterhead designed by Sormani, Milan.
the Hungarian designer
Imre Reiner. Archivio
Studio Boggeri, Meride,
Switzerland.

In the years before the Second World War, the activities, Mussolini’s government, with the I also worked with [the Rationalists] but I was a
Italian Modernist Bruno Munari (1907-98) worked support of the church, the monarchy, the armed graphic designer – both to earn a living as well as
simultaneously as a painter and an advertising forces and the industrial establishment, soon to have freedom in other areas.’ 1
designer trying his hand at a wide array of media: metamorphosed into an outright dictatorship, Milan was an important cultural centre,
illustration, photomontage, animation, book through a series of laws that suppressed political a welcoming environment for artists, writers and
design, publicity, art direction, exhibition and freedom and expression. intellectuals. They were able to nurture the
furniture design. His work, though apparently emerging relationship between art and industry
founded on a fundamental rationality, is enlivened Art and design in art galleries such as Il Milione; in the editorial
by an anarchic, humorous vein. Yet nowadays Munari grew up in the Veneto countryside, where offices of Casabella, run by the critic and editor
Munari is associated mostly with playful ‘illegible his family ran an inn. At the age of nineteen he Edoardo Persico and the typographer Guido
books’, work for children and his polemical returned to Milan, his birthplace, to become a Modiano, and of Guido Mazzali’s L’Ufficio moderno;
best-seller Design as Art (Penguin Modern Classics). painter, and was soon participating in the Milanese in Olivetti’s advertising office on via Clerici; and in
This may be because Munari’s early work was Futurists’ group exhibitions. Advertising design Antonio Boggeri’s studio on via Borghetto.
made under the Fascist regime, which rose to was often the main source of income for artists of In his early twenties Munari was employed as a
power in 1922 in the unstable Italian economic his generation. ‘Working as a graphic designer … sketch artist in the Mauzan–Morzenti studio, an ad
situation that followed the First World War. While was my salvation,’ Munari said in the 1980s. ‘While agency founded by the French affichiste Achille
protectionist policies and state interventions led other artists were bound to some dealer … I worked Mauzan, and began collaborating with the comic-
to a significant growth in production and wider as a graphic designer for magazines. I also did strip artists Carlo and Vittorio Cossio on pioneering
availability of consumer goods and leisure comics, but with a very different sense of humour. animated advertising shorts. 2

38 Eye 85/13 Eye 85/13 39

7-9. Cover and spreads less than two months
from the booklet and met with great
25 anni Olivetti, 1933. acclaim, leading to
225mm × 280mm. Munari joining the
Spiral binding, printed creative team as a
by Guido Modiano. freelancer. Numerous
When Olivetti’s publicity press advertisements and
office moved to Milan in commissions followed
1932, Munari was among over the next few years
the first artists called until Zveteremich quit
upon by its art director, his position in
Renato Zveteremich. 1938. Renata Bazzani
The booklet celebrating Zveteremich, Milano /
the company’s first 25 Associazione Archivio
years was produced in Storico Olivetti, Ivrea.

7 8

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 10 11

Working as a magazine illustrator, he could Ricas), Munari set up the graphic design studio 10 and 11. Cover and
experiment freely with visual language. His R+M, one of the first of its kind in Italy. He had met spread from the booklet
Il linoleum: sua
contributions to Futurist publishing ventures Ricas a couple of years earlier through Futurist
fabbricazione. Milano:
such as Almanacco dell’Italia veloce (1930) and circles. To begin with, R+M’s output had a painterly Società del Linoleum,
Simultanina (1931), and his work for popular emphasis, but gradually moved toward a 1938. 250mm × 280mm.
magazines (Lidel, Natura and L’Ala d’Italia) redefinition of the Futurist language through a Spiral binding. Printer
Guido Modiano oversaw
successfully transposed the new ‘aeropictorial’ more concise, abstract approach. The adoption
the design of the contents
trend into mainstream illustration. The best of the photographic collage as their preferred in collaboration with
examples of his mature Futurist style can be seen medium set Ricas and Munari’s style closer to R+M (Munari and Ricas),
in the anthology Il Cantastorie di Campari [The Surrealism than to typographic functionalism, and while the cover is by Luigi
Story-teller of Campari](1932) and the tin-litho book would remain their hallmark until the mid-1930s. Veronesi. Collezione
Bruno Munari, Enaip
L’Anguria lirica [The Lyric Cucumber] (1934). Their professional partnership remained flexible, Factory, Cantù.
with them signing work both together and
Futurist collaborations individually, until they parted ways in 1937, when
Until 1939, Munari’s work appeared in every edition Ricas joined the publisher Editoriale Domus.
of L’Almanacco letterario, an annual publication While Futurism provided his stylistic
devoted to the literary scene, published by framework, Munari kept abreast of metaphysical
Bompiani. His contributions ranged from comic and Surrealist developments through foreign
drawings to collage, photomontage and examples reproduced in the trade press. Despite
photograms, all with a distinctive ironic tone. He the closed intellectual climate imposed by the
also explored more conservative visual languages regime, artists in Milan could follow advances
for the covers of La Rivista illustrata del popolo in international art through foreign publications
d’Italia – the monthly supplement of Mussolini’s circulated in selected bookshops and art galleries.
newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia – and La Lettura. Munari’s compositions sometimes show close
In 1931, together with his fellow designer similarities to Herbert Bayer’s more Surrealist
Riccardo Castagnedi (known by the pseudonym advertising work. 3
12 13

12. Cover of La Lettura 13. Cover of Grazia

XXXVII 7, 1937. 190mm × no.37, 1939. 230mm ×
280mm. The illustration 310mm. Mondadori’s
was created with a women’s weekly was
‘tactile’ technique, launched in November
using a three- 1938; Munari joined
dimensional assemblage the editorial office
of cut-out photographs, soon afterwards.
cardstock, fabric, and Its conservative formula,
sandpaper. Biblioteca albeit with a modern
Braidense, Milan. edge, paved the way
to commercial success
with a middle-class
readership. Only after
July 1939 did the
magazine begin to use
colour. Emeroteca storica
Arnoldo Mondadori
Editore, Fondazione
Arnoldo e Alberto
Mondadori, Milan.

42 Eye 85/13 Eye 85/13 45

14
By the early 1930s photomontage was enjoying photographs and drawings within a modular grid an exhibition of graphic works from the German
a degree of popularity in Italy, both as a form of – an innovation brought to Italy by Modiano and Werkbund, curated by Paul Renner at the fifth
illustration in the press and at exhibitions. Munari Persico’s pioneering work at Casabella. 4 Milan Triennale, met with great acclaim; and
used photomontage in his illustration work for Antonio Boggeri opened his eponymous studio,
periodicals as well as in advertising. Milanese design culture a full-service agency whose work tended from the
Occasionally, he made celebratory Italy’s general backwardness largely excluded it outset towards the most advanced graphic
photomontages on propagandist themes, such from the Modernist aesthetic that was spreading production, favouring an eclectic
as ‘Udite! Udite!’ (‘Hear! Hear!’), a long sequence across Europe in the 1920s. Only in the early 1930s typo / photographic language.
published in L’Almanacco antiletterario (1937). Later did the New Typography cross the Alps southwards, Relying on input from experienced designers
in the decade his interest in photography focused along with Rationalist architecture and painterly such as Imre Reiner, Käthe Bernhardt, Xanti
on Surrealist collage, inspired by Ernst, and on abstraction. In Milan, these different strains of Schawinsky (who lived in Milan from the end of
cinematic sequences. Modernity formed an original ‘design culture’ from 1933 until 1936) and later Max Huber, Studio Boggeri
R+M’s clients included firms such as Campari which modern Italian graphic design was to emerge soon attracted young Milanese recruits, including
and Olivetti, which were among the first in Italy to after 1945. Milan was at the centre of the ‘Modernist Ricas and Munari. It was through their intense
create internal publicity offices. Olivetti’s Ufficio controversy’ that arose in the broader context of collaboration with Boggeri that Ricas and Munari
Sviluppo e Pubblicità (Development and Gruppo 7’s attempt to validate Italian architecture developed a more resolutely Modern approach.
Advertising Office), founded in 1931 and directed as a Modern style suited to the regime’s ambitions. Logos, catalogues, brochures, adverts –
by Renato Zveteremich, functioned as a kind of The campaign for Rational architecture preoccupied heterogenous as they can be – demonstrated a
laboratory. By hiring up-and-coming young the specialist press, especially Casabella, but minimalist formula, mostly image-based, but with
designers – Studio Boggeri, Xanti Schawinsky, the despite a few significant achievements, it was playful subversion and graphic invention.
architects Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini, and later, forced to compromise with the monumentalism
Marcello Nizzoli and Giovanni Pintori – it set the spreading through Italy’s urban centres. 5 In Milan, Magazines
stage for the creation in the postwar period of the the Triennale and the annual trade fairs did allow The R+M partnership came to an end around 1937.
‘Olivetti style’. for close collaboration between architects and Munari, now signing his work ‘pubblicità m’, began
Munari and Ricas were among Olivetti’s earliest graphic artists, leading to important, if ephemeral, to focus on advertising for companies in advanced
collaborators. The booklet 25 anni Olivetti (25 years integrated projects such as the 1934 aeronautical industrial sectors such as chemicals (Duco, Acna),
of Olivetti), designed by them and art-directed by exhibition at the Palazzo dell’Arte. textiles (SNIA Viscosa, Rhodiatoce), engineering
Zveteremich, featured innovations such as an Throughout the 1930s a heated debate in the (Lavorazione Leghe Leggere / Alluminio) and
album format, a double-page grid, photography and specialist press would pit the traditionalism of book plastics (Montecatini). This move, probably
photomontages, slab-serif type and black rules, typography – embodied by Raffaello Bertieri and his encouraged by Zveteremich, now freelance, meant
duotone printing, printing on cellophane and a magazine Il Risorgimento grafico – against a rational, neglecting the more general commercial area – with
spiral binding. (It was printed by Guido Modiano, expressive renewal of the graphic arts, as seen in the exception of periodicals. 6
a key figure in debates surrounding the renewal of Campo grafico, the magazine founded in 1933 by Illustrated magazines had become a dynamic
Italian graphic arts.) In a similar vein, if more a group of young printing technicians. sector in the hands of Milanese publishers such as
functionalist, is R+M’s catalogue for the model The year 1933 was an annus mirabilis for Italian Rizzoli and Mondadori. By January 1939 Munari
aeroplane company Movo, around 1937, which design: in parallel with the debut of Campo grafico, had joined Mondadori, overseeing art direction of
features a sensitive arrangement of text, Casabella radically changed format and layout; its new weeklies. While Modernist influences had
16 17
14 and 15. Cover and (June 1937). With its 16. Poster for national 17. Aluminium
inside pages from clear grid-based layout, coal campaign, 1939 advertisement for
catalogue for Movo, the Movo catalogue (from Tempo no. 12, the Società Anonima
a model aeroplane demonstrates Munari’s 1939). Biblioteca Lavorazione Leghe
company, 1937. adherence to the precepts Comunale Centrale Leggere (from Domus
140mm × 218mm. of the new typography Palazzo Sormani, Milan. no.144), 1939. 235mm ×
‘A brochure must be and his assimilation of 325mm. Working for large
thought of as a single Modernist stylistic conglomerates, Munari
strip’ wrote Munari elements. Alessandro favoured minimalist
in Campo grafico Clerici, Milan. compositions based on
photography mixed with
graphic or typographic
elements. Biblioteca
del Progetto, Fondazione
La Triennale di Milano /
Courtesy Editoriale
15 Domus, Milan.

46 Eye 85/13 Eye 85/13 47

18 20
18 and 19. Spreads from 20 (opposite). Cover of
Tempo no.141, 1942, with Tempo 67, 1940,
military infographics documenting the first
showing the substantial year of the Second World
loss of enemy (i.e. Allied) War. 270mm × 365mm.
ships and planes. Apart from minor
Infographics differences, the
accompanying photo- magazine’s adherence
essays and the popular to Life’s model is clear,
scientific columns were though Tempo granted
an original development more space to political
of the Mondadori issues. Photography
editorial office, overseen played a role in the
by Munari. Biblioteca striking covers, which
Comunale Centrale week after week
Palazzo Sormani, Milan. presented Italian readers
with an ‘official’ account
of the war’s
progress. Biblioteca
Comunale Centrale
Palazzo Sormani, Milan.

19

by then been partly assimilated into mainstream formula, and its graphic layout, overseen by
graphic production, Munari’s position in the early Munari, had a decidedly popular American bent,
1940s seems to be based on a personal synthesis of modelled as it was on Life.
Modernist vocabulary tempered by a more poetic, As well as overseeing the art department (where
even anarchic, attitude. contributors included Fulvio Bianconi and Carlo
Munari’s influence is visible in the covers and the Dradi), in his four years in Mondadori’s editorial
design of the women’s weekly Grazia: he worked office Munari produced twenty or so original photo
according to an intuitive layout, without preset features, encompassing curiosities, jokes and topics
typographic grids, giving himself a great deal of of war propaganda. In 1944 these were collected in
freedom in the combination of backgrounds and a volume as Fotocronache by Editoriale Domus –
borders and the crop of photographs, often going Munari had joined the publishing house as art
back to plain illustrations. director of its architecture magazine, also called
The news weekly Tempo was launched in June Domus, after the Tempo. 7
1939, on the eve of the war. It was Italy’s first full Apart from its often striking covers, Tempo’s
colour illustrated magazine: large-format, full bleed design was not innovative: the typeface Landi was
photographic cover, 60-odd pages divided into its sole concession to Rational typography, and its
columns on politics, news, literature and art. graphic design lay somewhere between the eclectic
Tempo was an immediate success, with several and the popular. It nevertheless became a long-
foreign editions selling up to one million copies a term success in Italian publishing (Mondadori used
week. Photography was a key element in its the same approach in 1950 for a new illustrated

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 22
magazine, Epoca – once again overseen by Munari). (if he knows how) [… and] become an active FOOTNOTES 5. After Florence’s Santa
One notable aspect of Tempo was its information person amongst others, aware of current 1. Munari quoted in Andrea Maria Novella station,
Branzi, ‘Il gioco del fare. other notable examples
graphics – such as maps, diagrams, plans that techniques, materials, and working methods,
Intervista con Bruno of modernist Italian
accompanied articles about the war fronts. and – without abandoning his innate aesthetic Munari’ in Modo 8: 71–72 architecture include
This visual development – which may have been sense – humbly and competently answer the (August–September 1984): Terragni’s Casa del Fascio
inspired by Signal, a propagandistic German questions one might pose. The designer is now 42. Corsico (Milano): (Como), Pagano’s
fortnightly distributed in occupied countries – soon the point of contact … between art and the public Ricerche Design Editrice. Università Bocconi (Milan),
2. No surviving copies or and the Città universitaria
became one of the magazine’s more distinctive … It’s no longer the painting for one’s living room
photographic extracts are and Termini station
features. Munari would perfect these skills further but rather the kitchen appliance. Art mustn’t yet known. (Rome).
at Domus in 1943-44. be separated from life: [with] beautiful things 3. Munari may have seen 6. Renato Zveteremich left
to be looked at and ugly things to be used.’ 8 Bayer’s work in die neue Olivetti in 1938 to work as
Inside publishing Notwithstanding a number of highly original linie, a women’s magazine, a freelance consultant for
art-directed by Moholy- industrial conglomerates
During the war years, in addition to art direction for visual investigations (the award-winning
Nagy and Bayer. such as Montecatini,
Mondadori and Editoriale Domus, Munari designed ‘illegible [wordless] books’, which eschew 4. Designer, printer and Schering and Farmitalia.
book jackets for Bompiani. This early entry into the textual communication for aesthetics; light critic Guido Modiano 7. Following the German
cultural industry anticipated later consolidations in projections; experimental films; fountains; toys; (1899–1943) specialised in occupation of northern
the Italian graphic arts. Whereas in the 1940s and teaching workshops) and his book design, prestigious editions and Italy in September 1943.
cultural periodicals such 8. Bruno Munari, Arte come
Olivetti was practically the only instance, the 1950s which helped define the identity of publishers
as Quadrante, Edilizia mestiere (Bari / Rome:
saw important synergies between intellectuals and such as Einaudi, Bompiani, Rizzoli and Editori Moderna and Le vie Laterza, 1966).
technologically advanced industrial firms such as Riuniti – establishing his own place in the Italian d’Italia. Alongside Edoardo
Pirelli, Italsider, Rinascente, Montecatini, Rai and design scene would be increasingly problematic Persico, he played a major
Roche. After the war Munari would re-emerge not for Munari. role in the redesign of
only as an artist and graphic designer but also as By the late 1950s Munari seemed constricted Casabella’s graphic look.
For the VII Triennale
industrial designer and pedagogue. Despite his by an outdated Modernist formula that was (1940) he was curator of
previous acceptance of the Fascist climate, pictorial in character rather than typographically the graphic arts exhibition.
Munari’s work and activities throughout the structured.
postwar period were informed by a progressive Though this approach was well suited to the
outlook. First with the Movimento Arte Concreta children’s books and toys he created, it may have
(Concrete Art Movement), and later through his hampered his wider success as a graphic
writings and his teaching, he became a spokesman designer. Yet his commitment to the world of
for the designer’s social role. childhood and education, culminating in the
creative workshops for children he established
Popular polemicist in the late 1970s, allowed him widespread,
‘Today, the artist must step off his pedestal and popular recognition that few other Milanese
deign to design [even] the butcher-shop sign designers have attained.
21 23

21 and 22 (opposite). 23. Spread from Domus

Spread and cover from 193, 1944. 245mm ×
Domus 195, 1944. 330mm. CCA, Montreal /
245mm × 330mm. Courtesy Editoriale
Munari laid out the Domus, Milan
architecture and design [all rights reserved]
magazine on a modular All photographs by
grid with flexible placing the author except for:
of text, photographs 2 (Albe Steiner), 15 (Enaip,
and graphic elements. Cantù), 16 (Biblioteca
The pages have 2, 3, 4 or 5 Braidense, Milan).
columns; simple All reproductions ©
overprinted line drawings Bruno Munari. Courtesy
enliven photographic Corraini Edizioni.
pages; a second colour
added visual
emphasis. CCA,
Montreal / Courtesy
Editoriale Domus, Milan
[all rights reserved].

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