Fantastiche feste meccaniche

In the middle of the Fifties, television penetrated the homes of Italians people, first of the few pioneers who could sustain the economic effort, while the majority of people consumed viewing TV programs in collective spaces and then soon reached the masses. The design exhibitions of the two brothers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni originated from their close collaboration with Rai-Radio audizioni italiane. They contributed to the creation of the history of the “domestic medium” by addressing it to a broad audience and defining what historian Peppino Ortoleva calls a “sense of the marvelous” regarding a new product that would definitively change the image, experience, and definition of the space of the home. The paper focuses on the projects that fall in the period from 1955 to 1969 and which express, with very different languages and solutions, on the one hand the Italian character of the exhibit design and, on the other hand, the cultural affiliation toward an object defined as a “mechanical eye” that is, as an element of mechanization of the space of the home. Rai’s pavilion at the Milan Trade Fair address the topics of domestication, intrusion, redefining the boundaries between private and public, play and technology. Among the most famous installations, the 1965 pavilion “Perfect connections and complex technical devices bring everyday happenings into every home” made with Enzo Mari is known for the formal expression and plasticity of the central volume suspended by metal cables from the modular structural cage, formed by iron pillars and trusses supporting the flat roof.