| Organizer of the debate and the diffusion of design. |
doorhandle
>
Polo
Who is he Rodolfo
Bonetto
Polo doorhandle (1991-1992 prod. Olivari)
| from
the book "L'architettura presa per mano" (Hand on architecture) by Stefano Casciani,
Idea Books, Milan, 1992 Bonetto's production as a designer is boundless: about four hundred objects, realized between 1959 - when he began collaborating with Borletti - and 1991, the year of his sudden death. A truly tireless worker, organizer of the debate and the diffusion of design through the ADI and the ICSID, an internationally renowned teacher and lecturer, Bonetto has nevetherless always privileged his everyday work as a designer: continuing to sketch projects while speaking with his interlocutor, giving instructions on models, checking them step by step, and above all embarking on endless "summit meetings". He has obviously emerged successful from these meetings, in view of the fact that he even succeeded in designing an engine for Fiat (Fire 1000, 1985). His products have been de- fined "immediately useful, full of good sense, functionally impeccable, submissive in a dignified manner, without egocentric anxieties" (Paola Antonelli, Collezione per un modello di museo..., 1990). |
 Driver's
seat for Fiat's Tipo car (1989) |
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> The Company > Products > Designers > Bibliography > Quality > Publicity |
| Bonetto
was, certainly, congenial in character and attitude to his objects: he was burdened
by an extremely strong conscience of the complexity of true industrial design.
It seems that he always had the wisecrack "If the product is sold it is thanks
to the marketing experts, if it is not sold it is the fault of the design" in
mind, which he even used as a premise for his participation at the 1989 SMAU prize. In order to counter the common belief that design is a substantially superficial matter, Bonetto dedicated all his energies, seeking to unite all the aspects of the process of creation of the object. He spoke of the necessity of "research, planning and development conducted by design and marketing in unison", but he knew well, at heart, that the final responsibility for the form and the functionality of a product almost entirely fell on the designer. This is perhaps why, if the effort was the same, he preferred to concentrate on truly complex products: industrial machines, telephones, hi-fis, videos, radios, dashboards for vehicles (a specialization of his), washing machines, illumination systems: instruments of which usability can actually be verified. Ergonomics was, for example, not an alibi for banal or exaggerated forms for Bonetto in this sense, but a true criterion of design, with rules and exceptions that became incentives for an improvement of the product. Thus, in his car interiors "the user, seated on the throne, becomes accustomed with the control just as naturally as he becomes familiar with the keyboard of a new telephone or the buttons of a television remote control". Therefore, maximum attention for the physical utilization of the object: also in his project for doorhandles for Olivari (1989-1990), Bonetto could not help insisting on the most comfortable shape possible. Tens of models were thus created, with which, by means of a sequence of small adjustments, the ideal form has been reached: which is not necessarily the most complex one. Indeed, the final product seems a timeless object: remote from fashions and styles, as Bonetto probably enjoyed to feel. |