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What follows is a conversation. On this occasion, the people
who interpreted modernity from a contemporary perspective as well as
the challenges it offers, were an editorial director, Emilia Terragni, publisher
of Phaidon, a British publishing house dedicated to the arts and the promo-
tion of creativity, and a museum director, Marco Sammicheli, superintendent
of the Museum of Italian Design at the Triennale Milano, a century-old
institution established to give an international home to the disciplines of
design, applied arts and everyday life.
The exchange between Terragni and Sammicheli provided an
opportunity to narrate how the Phaidon publishing house and the
Triennale cultural institution have, for the past century, succeeded in inter-
preting their time and telling the story of its transformation into new artefacts,
new languages and new knowledge. Books and exhibitions, research and
trends have become commodities to offer their communities moments in
which to meet and reflect and opportunities to engage in discussion.
A venue, the museum, and objects, namely books, have become increas-
ingly widespread and popular educational platforms that are crucial in the
processes of corporate evolution.
Exhibitions, publications and podcasts, architecture, gardens and shops,
architects, designers and artists, follow one another in the Q&A session
between Terragni and Sammicheli, drawing on both historical cases and
contemporary anecdotes. They offered viewers of the London conversa-
tion and today’s readers vivid scenarios of cultural design, tangible
actions to reach out to the public, and experimental activities all focused
on bringing the arts and everyday life together.
EMILIA TERRAGNI: In the context of design, modernity traditionally
refers to particularly approach or style that was more or less shaped at the
beginning of the 20th century. Modern design is characterized by starting from
traditional shape and forms, but it becomes an embrace of new technology,
new form, functionalism. Modern design is also considered to be global, dem-
ocratic, and bringing new useful object to a larger audience.
But modernity is actually an action. It’s an attitude. It anchored to
his progressive principles, but it’s always in constant evolution. It is much
more than a style, even if it is often confounded with a style: in my opinion,
modernity is an approach to life. Modernity is about being innovative, both in
the sense of the thinking and in the making. It is about being ahead of the
time and timeless, at the same time. Modernity is intellectual and cultural
timeframe, characterized by progress, by reason, but also by collaboration.
Modernity involves the desire to embrace new ideas, new values,
new approaches to very different aspects of life, in the fields of art, philosophy,
science, politics, or even social organization. It is very challenging to stay
modern when you get to a certain age. I am not talking about myself, only.
Phaidon this year is turning 100 years old: it was founded in 1923 on the
very principle of modernity, of being innovative, democratic, functional,
open to embrace new forms and new technologies, and very... collabora-
tive. All these principles continue to influence what we do. Actually, it is
not only Phaidon that is 100 years old, but it is also Triennale Milano. We
share the same birth date. We organized an exhibition in New York and in
London for our 100th anniversary: it was very interesting because we went
back to our archives to look for the books that somehow made our history.
It turned out being an incredible journey through our publications, and
while we were walking through the exhibition, we noticed a fantastic story
behind each book.
MARCO SAMMICHELI: As we can see, modernity is in all disciplines. It is
part our life. It’s everywhere. I personally think that is very interesting to talk
about modernity in the context of design, since design is one of the most
powerful embodiments of modernity. Between exhibitions and books, this
is exactly what we do, since we have the chance to do that in many differ-
ent ways. And when we write books about design or we realize exhibitions
on design, we are really bringing modernity to another level.
The purpose of design is always to be innovative, democratic, progressive.
And at its best, design solves problem and is trying to build a better and
more sustainable future. In doing so, it really needs to establish a new rela-
tionship, more responsible, more respectful, and even more dynamic with
nature, exploring innovative ways to minimize the harm to the environment.
We have at our disposal well-planned urban spaces, sustainable
infrastructures, and thoughtful design that really can contribute to a harmo-
nious coexistence. But we also have to be more flexible.
Real progress has to do with respect for nature: when I talk about nature,
I include both human beings and avoiding waste and pollution. But while
the concept of modernity is in constant evolution, its mission is always to
work for progress, quality, social justice, and our modern society has
come along from where we were in the past century. For sure, we know
that there is still a lot to do.
If we think about an institution like the Triennale or a publishing
house like Phaidon, and the role that an exhibition or a book can have in
bringing the arts to a wide audience, we understand how important is the
role that these exhibitions or books have in making culture even more
available. There is always an interesting tension between being in con-
stant evolution and being faithful to our principles and values: in the
moment we stop evolving, we stop being relevant. For this reason, we
can never stop.
ET: People think that modernity is all about new materials, simple
lines, but these are just tools constantly evolving. They stay, they go away,
they come back. What is important is always to have a clear idea, a mission,
a purpose. Our main mission as a publishing house is really to deliver
interesting contents in an innovative way, as we have seen in the past, the
story of art, the art books. The other important issue is always how to
organize the materials: in the end, it is all about design. Sometimes there
is no need to change. But occasionally the best way of being modern is
also to invent a new concept.
Especially when you are dealing with books, you really ask your-
self the question, are books still relevant? Are books still the best way to
deliver contemporary content in a digital era? Of course, being a publisher,
my answer is yes, but that doesn’t mean that we do not question about it
every day. The technology maybe changed, but the support is more or
less the same. It is very interesting to see how you can deliver very
contemporary and relevant content through books: an item that a lot of
people think that are quite obsolete.
What we can say about contemporary books is that they are very close and very
far away at the same time from the Gutenberg Bible. As much as a contemporary book is a
contemporary book, it’s still a contemporary book. It is very interesting to see how a con-
temporary chair is very close and very far away from a Roman chair. It’s more or less four
legs, a seat and a back, sometimes three legs, sometimes one leg. For us, it is important
to understand if the books are still serving the purpose that they are for.
I’ve been at Phaidon for 20 years and I can say that the way in which we do books has
actually changed quite a lot. I remember that when we started, we were working on all the
books with Renzo Piano and there was this idea of displaying his work; every three, four years
we were coming up with a new volume with his best works. It was a huge project, if we
compare it to a modern website: there is no question about it because a digital site can be
updated, and continually changed. This matter pushes us to really rethink the role of the book:
what is really important is not just displaying things, but the narrative, the storytelling, the
editing, the care that you put into it.
The core of the issue is the tension between what is already there, what we can
do in the present, but also how we can innovate a medium that is actually quite old and
quite obsolete. There is always a tension between innovation, technology, and the fact
that the book is immortal, is forever: a very interesting concept is also that once a book is
printed, is there with us forever. Every mistake will be there forever, and this is a way of
working. So the ephemeral of the digital world is fantastic, but it also allowed people to be
a little bit sloppy because it’s there and then it’s not there anymore. So there is this, and
then it’s not there anymore. And I think that is the permanence of the book really oblige us
to have a very different approach in the content.
That is fact checking, proofreading, all of the things that it becomes an obsession, but also
a service. And the idea it’s real to always have something in which you continues to reno-
vate the concept of the book, but actually at the end of the day, it’s not. And I think that’s the
key to the book. And so, at the end of the day, the book is the book. And you can keep it, it
can remind you things, you can enjoy, you can go back, and it’s there forever to be enjoyed.
MS: Yeah, I mean it’s, I also have an example in this sense because there’s not
a drop of nostalgia in what we are seeing tonight. No, it’s just a combination of factors and
different elements. Like two and a half years ago, we did a big, a exhibition on Saul
Steinberg. Saul Steinberg for the one that knows this great artist and illustrator is, you
know, you are, there’s a lot of people obsessed with him, but would say is a niche, it’s a
group of lovers. Then the rest of the people, maybe they don’t even know who he was or
if he was an architect or an illustrator or if he was European or American. Yeah.
And he was actually a great Romanian architect that was trained in Milan and then he
became probably the most New Yorkese artist in the recent history of contemporary art
and developed, the author of incredible New Yorker covers and so on.
We did this show, we did exhibition at Triennale, and we were aware that this
figure was not probably as popular as could be, you know, an Italian maestro of design.
So we invited a young journalist, Francesco Costa, to develop a podcast. And this pod-
cast was an incredible success, but was also an access for a completely diverse audi-
ence that were coming at the beginning of this. So we had a lot of people that were
interested in the exhibition. So at the beginning, whether, you know, people that they
were into illustration, people that they knew, Sol Steinberg. And then later came people
that they were, okay, we heard about this man because of Francesco podcast.
So what was actually designed by Triennale as a complementary experience to
the real experience, to the physical experience, it became actually the access and the
way that pushed people to the exhibition. So that’s how we do it. We also have a lot of
people who come to the exhibition to see the exhibition. It’s a great way to encourage people
to come to Triennale. So as you said, like now there’s, you will continue to do books forever.
This also will be the job of Triennale. We won’t ever, ever stop to publish catalogs
and arrange exhibitions and install physical experience in a building because we know
that people, especially Milanese citizens, when it’s 6 o’clock on a weekday, they’re like,
what to do? Oh, I can go to Triennale, I can have an aperitivo, and I can see an exhibition,
or I can come for lunch, and they feel that that is a very familiar space, but it is also a place
where there’s many, can happen many encounters, let’s say, with art, with architecture,
and with different formats.
That’s why I mentioned the podcast. Yeah, I think that’s also interesting, because
a structure like the Triennale, it’s a place where you go, you enter, maybe you go for a specific
exhibition, but then you always have any other three or four things that you don’t know, you
learn, but it’s really the physical experience of going there, and look at things that really
enrich you, and the summer was really a very interesting show, because you heard about it,
you knew it, you saw it, it reminds you of the New Yorker, but it was not really a mainstream
designer or illustrator, but a lot of people went there because it wasn’t the Triennale, because
it was in a space, and then discovered it, so there is this continuous chain of events and of
physical experience that really makes it a very interesting place.
And I think that’s what’s so interesting about the Triennale, because it’s a place
where you can learn and have knowledge that maybe you wouldn’t have had if you don’t
really stumble into it, and this is the beauty of this, and it’s also the beauty when you are in a
bookshop, in which you just see something that you have never, never heard about it, and
you are just attracted because it’s a curious cover, or because it’s a strange title, or for many
other reasons, or because that day you are in a specific mood. But it’s really this physical
experience. And then it’s not about being against the digital, or the digital is a fantastic thing.
MARCO SAMMICHELI IN CONVERSATION WITH EMILIA TERRAGNI.
A FLUID CONCEPT: COMPLEXITY AND TURNOVER.
TalkingAbout 2023
LONDON, 30.11.23
Marco Sammicheli is curator of the design, fashion, crafts sector at Triennale Milano and Director of Museo del
Design Italiano. After graduating in Communication Science from the University of Siena and specializing in History
of Design at the Bauhaus in Weimar, he earned a doctorate in design and technology for the development of cultural
heritage at Politecnico di Milano.
He curated shows and essays on catalogs for museums in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Columnist
for “Wallpaper*” and for Il Sole 24 Ore. He wrote monographs on designers and publications on Milan as an urban
platform for creative industries.
Emilia Terragni is Associate Publisher for Architecture, Design and Food titles at Phaidon Press — the world’s premier
publisher of books on the visual arts. She worked previously as a Curator at the Barragan Foundation and Vitra
Design Museum and studied art history at the University Ca' Foscari in Venice.
At Phaidon, she founded the design list and then went on to create and develop the culinary list, publishing books that
combine lifestyle, food, and hospitality, while being beautiful objects in their own right.
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