The Book Unfolded

This is the second half of the story of designer Bruno Munari's work in publishing for designers, artists, and children. Show notes, image gallery, and a transcript are available at robinmitchellcranfield.com⁠.  This episode looks at Munari’s work between 1962 and 1972, his contributions to the “gentle revolution” in Italian education and his legacy as an industrial designer, and design educator. Gianni Rodari, Roberto Rossellini, and William Morris feature in this story. Munari's Falklands lamp for Danese and his Abitacolo are highlighted. Books by Munari referenced are Design as Art, Good Design, Xeriographia, La Notte Buia, and Little Yellow Riding Hood. Publishers referenced are Einaudi, Corraini, and Emme Edizioni

In designer Bruno Munari's world, a book can be a sculpture or a toy. He sees the book as an object which holds expressive potential in its form. Looking at things through Munari’s eyes is like looking through a kaleidoscope, everything has the potential to transform or be replaced or questioned. Find out what shaped the beautiful mind of this celebrated Italian designer and artist in part 1 of this audio essay. Show notes, transcript, and image gallery are at robinmitchellcranfield.com⁠.  This essay is adapted from public talk for Italian Design Weeks at Emily Carr University, on Munari's Unreadable Books, his Useless Machines, his children's books, and his public art workshops called "Little Green Riding Hood", which is available on YouTube.⁠

In this interview, Pietro Corraini explains the connection between books and space, why Corraini Edizioni treats books as total objects, and what the connection is between Bruno Munari and the 'gentle revolution' in Italian education of the 1960s and 70s. Corraini recently opened the Spazio Munari in Milan, a gallery and bookstore dedicated to Bruno Munari. Find out more at corraini.com and listen to their fantastic podcast, “Play to Learn.” Special thanks to Benedetta Lelli from the press office of Corraini, who joined us! See images for this episode here. A transcript of this episode is available here.

An annotated reading of Bruno Munari's essay "Children's Books" from his book Design as Art (Penguin) originally published as Arte come mestiere (Laterza) in 1966. The essay starts at 2:16. Show notes + image gallery available at robinmitchellcranfield.com This is the first of a short series on Italian artist and designer Bruno Munari.

I speak with Ben Brown (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Koroki, Ngāti Paoa), the inaugural ⁠Te Awhi-Rito New Zealand Reading Ambassador⁠, from Aotearoa New Zealand about emerging and traditional literacies, libraries, and how books and storytelling connect us with one another. We also talk about the role of writing in youth justice, and how bookmaking helps young people to understand and express their own stories. An updated edition of Ben’s memoir, ⁠A Fish in the Swim of the World⁠, was published by Penguin in 2022 and he’s also written many books for children, including the acclaimed A Booming in the Night and ⁠he's also served as the editor for an anthology of Young People's poetry from a workshop he ran at an Oranga Tamariki Youth Justice Residence⁠, which we talk about later in our conversation.  Radio New Zealand has two recorded talks delivered by Ben: the ⁠Margaret Mahy Memorial Lecture⁠, where he addressed the power of imagination and its deep roots in te ao Māori, and a ⁠Pānui on youth justice and the power of words⁠. This⁠ diagram shows what Ben is describing when he talks about the harakeke plant. The web page for this episode has more information and images ⁠A transcript of this episode is available⁠ I would love to hear from you! Find me at my web site robinmitchellcranfield.com

This episode is about the surprises suspended in cool archival materials, and the allure of that. It is also about the wave of luxury design magazines from the turn of the millennium, from Purple magazine to the Williams Sonoma catalogue, and especially the bizarre and beautiful Nest magazine. Visiting poet Lisa Robertson's archive revealed to me what historian Arlette Farge called "The Allure of the Archives." I encountered something nostalgic, Farge found something beautiful. We both encountered surprises. A gallery of this images and a transcript are at robinmitchellcranfield.comSaRTPxdEPyuRSMckmWSq

Can we use the book as a net to capture our fleeting thoughts? The School of Life's pop self-help book "How to think More Effectively" brings Vladimir Nabokov's and Marcel Proust's creative processes into focus, but there is more to the story. This episode looks at different sources to find out how these writers used simple tools to arrange their messy thoughts into the tidy rectangles we now have our shelves and the benefits of a notebook/sketchbook practice. Plus Bruno Munari's ⁠Libro Illegibile, Kenya Hara, Virginia Woolf, and those handsome Italian ⁠Ellepi Klizia⁠ staplers. Show notes: ⁠robinmitchellcranfield.com⁠.

This was my first experiment with making an audio essay, adapted from an essay I wrote for Amphora in 2018. Marshall McLuhan's outdated musings on the book, "Haptic Woman", "Renaissance Man" and the "oral tradition" share the mournful tone of René Descartes's perspective on knowledge. The assumptions they rely on about printed text as a superior form of communication linger on today. To add oxygen to the conversation about the death (and new life) of the printed book, I look to Kenya Hara, Jia Tolentino, and Michel de Montaigne. More at robinmitchellcranfield.com.