Victor Papanek, the pioneer of social and sustainable design for the real world
Victor Papanek spearheaded social and sustainable design based on political awareness rather than consumerism. A biography of the author of Design for the Real World.
Patrizia Scarzella
Contributor
I’ve been writing about design and architecture for many years and I realise social design projects in Italy and abroad. What did I love the most of my works? The three years I spent in Africa and Asia for a design training and product development project for women in situations of social unrest, with the aim to lay the foundations of a sustainable microeconomics. Photography is a passion and an important mean for my creative work. I have a daughter who lives in San Francisco, the world’s most beautiful city to me.
Favourite quote: “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” (Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
Victor Papanek spearheaded social and sustainable design based on political awareness rather than consumerism. A biography of the author of Design for the Real World.
Kengo Kuma, one of the greatest contemporary architects, tells us about his pursuit of a form of sustainable architecture based on respect for nature and cultural specificity.
Renowned as the mind behind The High Line’s green spaces in New York, landscape designer Piet Oudolf is considered the father of spontaneous gardens such as Milan’s Library of Trees.
Renzo Piano’s archive in Genoa houses the great architect’s projects. It brings young people closer to creative work, which he equates to “looking into darkness without fear”.
Yona Friedman is a visionary and innovative architect and theorist. We met him during the inauguration of the installation he made in occasion of the Milan Design Week.