Design Cultures in Italy and Denmark

Italy and Denmark have a strong consciousness and organisation as ‘design nations’, so it is valuable to compare the design cultures of these two countries. There are both contemporary and historical parallels between Italian and Danish design culture, as both countries experienced an international breakthrough in the consumer culture of the 1950s with a distinct modernistic, but also sophisticated aesthetic idiom. Most associations with Italian design were, however, quite differently coded, and expectations differed a lot between Danish and Italian design. This seminar will uncover conditions and meanings of diverging design cultures through aspects of aesthetics, professions, gender, consumption, media, and green transition, as well as challenge the clichés of national storytelling.