Anna Bissanti, The Design Book, 2016

A “design classic” is an industrially manufactured object with an aesthetic value that transcends time. It represents a standard of its kind and, regardless of the year of its creation, it is always current. The objects in this book, still in production, are presented chronologically: each on a single page, with the large image and a concise caption, the work of an expert in the field of design (the authors are more than fifty). These short writings provide a historical context, with essential data on the evolution of style, and an explanation of why that particular design is important and innovative. This mini edition of Phaidon’s successful series of Design Classics offers readers an understanding not only of the history of design, but also of that of taste and culture. It is an extraordinary journey through the objects that have shaped our society, from the first attempts to combine functionality and beauty in the nineteenth century, through the aesthetics of the machine of the thirties, the advent of plastic and other new materials in the fifties and Sixty, up to the “classics of tomorrow” of the last decade.

This book includes not only classic objects created by internationally renowned designers, such as Breuer, Le Corbusier, Dreyfuss, Eames, Yanagi and Castiglioni, to name but a few, but also pieces of which the authorship is unknown, such as clothespins, the deck chair, the corkscrew and the chopsticks for food, which, albeit in the absence of a specific designer, have achieved such perfection of style and functionality that there is no longer any room for improvement. From the paper clip to the Savoy vase by Alvar Aalto, to the Jaguar Type E, all the objects depicted in this book have a place on our desks, in wardrobes, in the kitchen, in our bags, in our dreams and in our pockets.