Italian Futurist Design

Think of Italian design, and images of sleek sports cars, elegant mid-century furniture, or playful postmodern objects might spring to mind. But there was a time when Italian design was far less polished and infinitely more explosive – this was the era of Futurism. A tempestuous artistic, social, and political movement, Futurism was obsessed with dynamiting the past and hurtling towards a future defined by the machine, urban energy, and even the unsettling allure of war. Design was their weapon and their manifesto.

In 1909, poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti unleashed the Futurist Manifesto upon ...