Company Museum in Italy

Within the complex of Italian institutions involved in the conservation and advancement of the historic legacy of industrial design, company museums have become particularly significant because of their number and the quality of their work. Starting in the early Nineties – but prior examples may be found in the museums created by Pirelli in 1922 and even earlier by Richard-Ginori – we have witnessed the creation of a significant number of archives and museums; they form a constructive network of collections that document part of the industrialization process in Italy. And though they do not legally constitute a recognized museum typology, their activity led to the foundation of a dedicated Association in 2001, a rather rare case in Europe, which captured the attention of the media in view of the advent of new dynamics in tourism and within the more general theme of the relationship between business and culture. An initial overview by the author surveyed over 200 working institutions; among them, several of the most active museums belong to the most important Italian design industries. This increase in quantity and quality has served to divulge stories, personalities and characteristics of manufacturing history, but has also contributed to the progressive identification of specific museographical, scientific and cultural issues and methodologies, clearly underscoring the inadequacy of traditional museum models for this type of structure. The nature of the industrial design discipline requires many different disciplines and points of view to engage in dialogue. If we choose the industrial artifact, for example, as the point of departure for our “story”, it could be the center around which the processes revolve of design, production, communication and consumption, or the relationship and repercussions of transformations of the environmental, economic and social contexts, becoming a temporal sequence in the “history of things”. To make this understandable, it is important to develop a museum “model” that can create a dialogue between the physical, paper-based and iconographic materials and everything else that constitutes a source for the history of industrial design. The interest towards this category of museum is also based on one of the specificities and potentials of the company museum, which is the “active” contribution that “memory” can provide for the education of the designer within the manufacturing industry. A lateral but ideally central contribution which can become essential for the individual memory and identity of the structures and the legacy of museums-archives preserved and advanced by the industry, and for a more conscious and contemporary design. A living and operating museum that can prove decisive for the company’s work, and can serve to “educate” designers, but also other personnel active in related company functions.