Cino Zucchi
Cino Zucchi’s Book List
Johann Heinrich Füssli, a Swiss painter friend of William Blake, said once: “In art many beautiful things are born by chance, but are conserved by choice.” The same happens in life, or in our intellectual development. Encountering knowledge is like encountering love; the books that have been meaningful to us are more often “found” than searched for, but the long-lasting impression they make on our mind or soul is caused by inner resonances. Sometimes they are sitting on the shelf right next to the one we were looking for, sometimes we are just inspired by their whimsical title in someone else’s bibliography, sometimes they are passed on by a friend as a wrap of dope. In our mind, the books we read form an elaborate geography of towns, valleys, cities; we love to visit new sites, but also to go back from time to time to places we love, seeing how much our memory has deformed their squares and their alleys to become a meaningful backdrop of our own wandering paths.
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Hitchcock reveals to Truffaut all his tricks to amplify the intensity of certain scenes by bricolage techniques: a light in a glass of “poisoned” milk to make it as white as possible, a giant model of a gun to shoot a “subjective” scene. Ex ficto verum…
Throw away all theories and speculations about the “golden ratio”: this is one of the few serious books about design methods in ancient Greece based on archaeological evidence.
A healthy antidote to self-centered design attitudes!
A marvelous collection of articles on the haphazard lines of evolution, and the equally haphazard paths of scientific discovery. Plain language and sophisticated thought by one of the last scientists with deep humanistic interests. Gould narrates the story of the QWERTY keypad as it were that of a mollusk of the “Cambrian explosion.”
A perfect language for a perfect narrative construction, in which the exactness of argumentation leads to making paradoxes true. How could the Nobel Prize in Literature be given to Dario Fo and not to Borges? Unbelievable.
Originally a poet, Paul Valéry decided to quit poetry and write about almost every field of human experience, revealing himself one of the sharpest minds of the last century. Degas Dance Drawing, Tel Quel, Rhumbs, and the endless quest of his Quaderns are among the writings that primarily touched my intellect. In Monsieur Teste, Valéry tries to present the picture of a “pure intelligence,” interested in its own mechanisms more that in the object of that intelligence. The Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vinci, one of his earliest essays, goes way beyond the argument of its title, advocating for a unity between the phenomenological level and the search for deep structures in nature and design.
An artificial intelligence genius, best known for his Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979), Hofstadter is able to create connections among areas belonging to the most diverse regions of human experience. His plea to carry to the limit small deviations from well-known patterns to reach new insights (in the essay in Metamagical Themas called “Variations on a Theme as the Crux of Creativity”) could be taken as a manifesto for reuniting knowledge and discovery, culture and experimentation.
Before his spectacular shift from obscure mathematical formulas to folk design, which generated his other masterwork, A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander gave us deep illuminations on the difference between traditional craftsmanship, based on the repetition of forms, and modern design attitudes, founded on the division between “method” and “result.” A post-functionalist insight into form-making.
Still the most seminal essay on the present relationship between “high-brow” and “low-brow” art. The comparison between cinema and music, which “can be both perceived in a state of distraction,” is prophetic, as are many of the other considerations. A landmark in modern artistic theory.
Announcements
Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister
Now is Better
By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023
Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
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Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)
By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023
This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.
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