Capolavori in movimento: dallo stile al design

The car has always had a decidedly design-based connotation as its priority and therefore a stylistic formalization based on aesthetics1. The car has also revolutionized humanity’s way of life. It is likely that in future historians will point to the car as the fulcrum of contemporary evolution: the development of the motor vehicle is the outcome of visionary dreams, endless work and experiments. But a history of the automobile is also economic history and a history of social clashes and developments, exchanges with arts and customs, as well as the history of technology and science. It was in America that the car developed rapidly as a social phenomenon, starting in the early 20th century: the Ford Model T gave the Americans the opportunity to expand their horizons, overcoming the long distances between the centres of population and the lack of adequate public transport. Designing a car to overcome a social problem necessarily led to considering technical and production factors rather than formal ones, so satisfying only the need of one generation. By contrast, the situation in Europe was different, where cars had a luxury and elitist character. They were designed and built above all for a wealthy public, with two-tone2 coachwork determining their status. Hence it is important to stress the clear difference in the automobile/society relationship which, however convergent today, makes the American situation very different from the European.