The Italian Office Desk: ‘Mass production and one-off piece’ towards the modernity / El escritorio de la oficina italiana: “La producción en masa y la pieza única” hacia la modernidad

In Italy the history of modern equipment design has shifted between ‘mass production and one-off’, as architects Gio Ponti and Antonio Fornaroli wrote in an article in the magazine Domus (1948). Starting from this important reflection by the two Italian architects, the article takes into consideration the case study of office furniture. The aim of the article is to identify the cultural landscape of Italian design during the twentieth century, taking into consideration the example of the office desk as fil rouge of the history of design in Italy. The methodology adopted is deductive: starting from the selection of some case studies (desks designed for some elitist furnishings or, vice versa, for serial reproduction) and in relation to the architectural and cultural context in which they were created, some key concepts are deduced in order to understand the progressive adherence of Italian architects to the idea of modernity, and then to the massification of industrial design. New materials and ancient ‘know-how’ have merged into projects that have distinguished the history of design in Italy as original. The conclusion highlights how in the history of Italian office furniture as a multi-faceted history, where elite furniture can become a democratic product, until it becomes part of the contemporary office.