CONTINUITY OF TRADITION  The design school of Florence "I utterly scorn all those who are especially interested in creating their own tradition... Cultural fundamentalism is most dangerous and most wicked in the long time... My best students are those who followed their own way and not mine". Giovanni Klaus Koenig We're quite used to considering Milan as the design capital, but curiously, we're never told that Florence has played an important role in industrial design development. In fact, it was Pierluigi Spadolini who managed to establish the first course of design (its exact title was Artistic Designing for Industry) at Florence University in the fifties. In 1962 ISIA (Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche) was established and important scholars such as Spadolini, Giovanni Klaus Koenig and Leonardo Benevolo gave lectures there. The experience of Controdesign developed in Florence at the end of the 60s, involving relevant intellectuals such as Adolfo Natalini and Andrea Branzi, whose fame reached an international level. Still in Florence and still in the same period, there was the significant and successful fellowship between Koenig and Roberto Segoni about the issues of social design. Florence has stood out for its original proposals even from a theoretical and critical point of view. Some examples are the aesthetics researches of Gillo Dorfles, the significant contributions of Umberto Eco and the numerous essays by Giovanni Klaus Koenig. The Florentine tradition is continually renewed with the innovative didactic activity carried out at Florence University where Roberto Segoni and Remo Buti give lectures at the course of Industrial Design and of Furniture and Interior Decoration. In addition, there are also the Specialisation School run by Massimo Ruffilli, the University School of Fashion and ISIA, run by Giuseppe Furlanis with many international lecturers. The activity of Florence schools and University has been acknowledged at an international level and has also been awarded with the "Golden Compass". From a theoretical and critical point of view, it's important to highlight the activity carried out by Centro Studi Klaus Koenig which has organised congresses, conferences and workshops on design since 1993 and still promotes research projects in co-operation with companies and governmental institutions (two examples are represented by the Project for the Creation of a Regional Network for Formal Innovation and Tecnoalabastro: Innovation for Alabaster). The Florence design school has always had tight co-operation relations both with big enterprises and small and medium enterprises which managed to make the Tuscan manufacturing system successful. The main feature of Tuscan experience is to be found in the remarkable relationship established with artistic and technological craftsmanship which has largely contributed to spread all over the world the idea of a Tuscan life-style connected with quality life, harmony, high technology and original and aesthetic symbolic contents only starting from its history, its culture and its local traditions. Some of the most important co-operation projects with companies are those with Fiat, Lancia, Breda, Agusta, Fiorentinambiente, Ataf, Mantellassi, Zeroitalia, Segis, Ariete, Mukki and Pampaloni. It's also important to remark that the most important Italian companies have employed several young designers or architects graduated from Isia or Architecture Faculty of Florence University as managers. All the projects introduced were part of degree dissertations written by some students who took Industrial Design at Architecture Faculty of Florence University and who had Professor Roberto Segoni as their tutor.

Text by: Giuseppe Lotti I. II. III. IV. V. VI. In cooperation with: Elena Granchi Sonia Morini TOP