The Material of Invention: Materials and Design

by Ezio Manzini

New materials have radically altered the options available to industrial designers. The Material of Invention examines these new options and suggests what they might portend for the future. A different sort of design history, it focuses almost exclusively on the materials that form the basis of innovative design. The text and nearly 400 illustrations are the product of a large scale collaboration embodying the philosophical and aesthetic responses of Italian designers to the possibilities, limits, and design implications of this challenging new world of materials.

The book is in five parts, The first, Matter and Ideas, is theoretical. The second, Portraits of Families in Motion, is historical. The third, Playing with the Possible, is analytical and forms the core of the book; it examines the new possibilities for products that are lightweight, heat resistant, elastic, transparent, and with diverse surface qualities. A fourth part, Exercises in Invention offers a portfolio of design experiments; while the last part consists of a technical appendix, glossary, and bibliography.

Ezio Manzini is Professor of Architectural Technology at the Politechnico di Milano.

Genres: Design

250 pages, Hardcover

First published May 10, 1989