BRUNO MUNARI

El Confidencial

Probably if you are interested in the art world you know who Bruno Munari is. Many People, including Picasso,  would say that he is a "Leonardo of our time". But if you do not know who he is, do not worry. From MCH Master we tell you who Bruno Munari was and why his art is so famous.

Who was Bruno Munari?

Bruno Munari (Milán, 1907-1998) was one of the protagonists of the Italian art scene of the twentieth century, starting his activity in 1926, during the second Futurist movement.

In 1927 he took part in the group exhibition entitled Trentaquattro Pittori Futuristi (Thirty-four Futurist Painters) at the Pesaro gallery in Milan, but he soon developed an autonomous vision that led him to approach the abstract artists.

In the 1930s Munari abandoned painting to explore the concept of the movement of forms in space from a different point of view. His experiments, theorised in the Manifesto of Futurist Aeroplasticism (1934), led him to create plastic works such as the Aerial Machine (Macchina Aerea), the Sensitive Machines (Macchine Sensibili) and the Useless Machines (Macchine Inutili), exhibited at the Il Milione gallery in Milan in 1933. 

At the same time, Munari devoted himself to graphic design, founding the R+M office in 1930 with Riccardo Castagnedi and establishing a number of post-war collaborations with the publishing houses Einaudi, Mondadori, Italgeo and Corraini. In 1948 he founded the Concrete Art Movement and began to explore the world of design, thanks to his collaboration with the Danese company.

In almost seventy years of activity, Bruno Munari created works ranging from art to graphics, from design to book collections. His works include the Talking Forks (Forchette parlanti), made of stainless steel, accompanied by the illustrated book with drawings and graphics (1958); the installation Concave-Convex (Concavo-Convesso, 1947) and the series of abstract paintings Negative-Positive (1963); children's books such as the Prelibri (Prelibri, 1980), the Tactile Books and the Illegible Books (Libri Tattili and Libri Illeggibili, 1957).

In the field of design, Munari created iconic objects such as the Cubo ashtray, which received the Compasso d'Oro ADI award in 1954, and the Falkland lamp (1964), both for Danese.

Works that received awards and recognition include the foam rubber toy Scimmietta Zizí (Compasso d'Oro ADI 1954) and the Abitacolo per Robots (Compasso d'Oro ADI 1979). He also received the Milan Triennale Gold Medal for the Illegible Books, the Lego Award for his contribution to the development of children's creativity and his 4th Compasso d'Oro ADI, in 1994, as a lifetime achievement award.

Bruno Munari at Fundación Juan March

Fundación March

Works that received awards and recognition include the foam rubber toy Scimmietta Zizí (Compasso d'Oro ADI 1954) and the Abitacolo per Robots (Compasso d'Oro ADI 1979). He also received the Milan Triennale Gold Medal for the Illegible Books, the Lego Award for his contribution to the development of children's creativity and his 4th Compasso d'Oro ADI, in 1994, as a lifetime achievement award.

The exhibition, conceived as a group show of Bruno Munari, as he entitled one of his exhibitions, includes a selection of nearly three hundred paintings, drawings and sculptures, projections and light games, graphic and industrial design pieces, typographic exercises and writings and children's books from private collections and public and private institutions.

Both the exhibition, which ranges from his early works linked to Futurism and graphic design to his latest experiments in the 1990s, and the accompanying publication are organised around the methodological concepts essential to Munari's work: time, method, lightness, experimentation and contemplation. 

In addition, the exhibition space houses an educational laboratory where children, young people and families can experiment with materials following the famous "Munari method", designed to learn through play and work.

Learn more about Bruno Munari with MCH Master

Remember that if you are interested in the work of Bruno Munari and want to know more about him, MCH Master can help you. 

The Master of Advanced Studies in Collective Housing is a professional and international postgraduate programme that is developed on a full-time basis, dealing with advanced architectural design in the city and housing. It is designed and taught jointly by the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH).

The application period for MCH2023 is already opened.

For more information, click here!