AUTOPROGETTAZIONE ? - ENZO MARI - 1974
One day, I discovered a wooden table at a friend’s house, a magnificent designer table: "I made it myself, as simple as putting together Ikea furniture!"
Indeed, he had simply bought the wooden panels cut according to the dimensions given in "Autoprogettazione?", then assembled them with screws, and that was it.
Enzo Mari explains in a video how to assemble his furniture (the version with nails, though you can also use screws), click here 🛠
"This project, led by Enzo Mari and exhibited for the first time in 1974 at the Galleria Milano under the title Proposta per autoprogettazione, is a true manifesto aimed at revolutionizing the world of distribution. He proposed giving individuals direct access to construction plans for a series of furniture items easily buildable by anyone, using standard boards and common DIY tools (hammer, saw, nails, and glue). These plans, distributed for free during the exhibition, were later collected in the form of this book.
Anyone could, for their own personal use, take these drawings and make furniture themselves at a minimal cost. In two days, you could furnish an apartment with tables, chairs, benches, wardrobes, a bookshelf, a desk, and beds." (cit. AUTOPROGETTAZIONE at the origins of do-it-yourself)
- Format: 16 x 23 cm
- 64 pages
- Languages: Italian & English
Enzo Mari was born in 1932 in Novara, a municipality in the province of Novara.
He studied art and literature at the Brera Academy in Milan from 1952 to 1956, where he became interested in design and the psychology of vision. He had to work during his studies, and during those years he forged a "vision of workers as an aristocracy of modern times."
He joined the company Danese at the end of his studies, attracted by the proposal of the recently created firm to "breathe art into everyday life."
In 1955, he married Gabriella Ferrano (1931-2014), known as Iela Mari, also a designer. They had two children, Michele and Agostina. Together, they published several children's book classics, such as The Apple and the Moth and The Chicken and the Egg.
In 1972, he took part in the collective exhibition organized at the MoMA in New York, "Italy: The New Domestic Landscape."
In 1974, during an exhibition at the Galleria Milano, Enzo Mari caused a revolution in the field of design with Proposta per un’autoprogettazione, a manifesto book on anti-consumerist, "do-it-yourself" design. In it, he offered plans for functional and aesthetic furniture to be made by hand using simple materials: he postulated that in two days, one could furnish an apartment with tables, chairs, benches, wardrobes, bookshelves, a desk, and beds. He believed that "by making these objects, amateur cabinetmakers would become aware of the thought 'hidden behind' them and would free themselves from the dictates of consumer society."
Enzo Mari was a proponent of manual labor: "I defend hand-made work, not necessarily in craftsmanship, but also in industry. There must be no separation between intelligence and the hand, between mental elaboration and technique. Even an airplane is made by hand!"
He collaborated with several international brands, such as Magis, Thonet, Artemide, and Muji.
He openly declared himself a communist, without ever having joined the Italian Communist Party.
He died on October 19, 2020, in Milan at the age of 88. (Source: Wikipedia)