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installation view © Vitra Design Museum. Photo: Bettina Matthiesse
Date and location: until 4 September, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein.
If during the mid-20th century plastic made its debut in the universe of furniture and design as a revolutionary innovation, today this material becomes controversial due to its enormous environmental impact, even if new avant-garde solutions are studied every day for its sustainable use: the history, evolutions and future of plastic are on show at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein in the exhibition "Plastic: Remaking our world" until September 4.
From pop era objects to contemporary design, from ideas to reduce waste recycling to bioplastic produced with algae, a video installation opens the exhibition itinerary illustrating the evolution of plastic from its debut through vintage and contemporary film clips, identifying among the crucial periods of this material the rise of industrial design as early as the 1930s, when designers such as Gio Ponti welcomed the possibilities offered by the new plastic materials.
The boom of plastic in interior design, however, occurred years later, between the 60s and 70s, thanks to the growing fascination of flights in space which gave plastic a utopian and futuristic dimension which was realized in the shapes of Eero Aarnio's Ball Chair (1963), or Gino Sarfatti's Moon Lamp (1969), who also designed the Toot-a-Loop, (1971), a plastic bracelet with a built-in radio, which became one of the first wearable devices.
Recycling is the keyword: the paradox of plastic from a fascinating, practical and resolving material to an environmental problem on a global scale is addressed by the exhibition in its section dedicated to recycling, which exhibits the most significant projects to date developed to filter plastic waste from rivers and oceans, to reduce packaging and disposable products, focusing for example on furniture that can be returned to the manufacturer for repairs or recycling.
