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It may seem weird, but going backwards through the history of the domestic environment over the centuries, one realizes that today we live almost a return to prehistory. Increasingly, the home must be a fluid and open space, capable of adapting as needed, a kind of large hut equipped with full functionality.
If we study the issue well, we find that the concept of an open, fluid and continuous space, to foster richer and more pleasant ways of domestic life, emerges with some frequency as early as the 1950s especially in the design activity of Gio Ponti. Throughout his career Ponti conceived "large spaces for living" that had flexibility and adaptability as their main characteristic.
Beginning in the same years, furniture manifacture and design reflect this vision: with Franco Albini's roof to floor bookcases, which act as real room dividers when needed, or the desks designed by BBPR for Olivetti's large rooms where employees share a single space. Designers' genius continued to evolve in later years, just think of the Lampadina table light, designed by Achille Castiglioni in 1972, thanks to a simple hole on the bottom it can be transformed into a convenient wall sconce.
In 1937 Ponti said about the configuration of the house and dealing with the importance of "happy framings": "... Having broken the bond of the equal height of the rooms, one enters as it were a new world in regard to furnishings; it is no longer a matter of upholstery or arrangement or design of furniture, but it is composition of spaces, of objects in spaces, of lights and colors; [... ] the rooms are no longer strung with little boxes or big boxes more or less richly wallpapered; the dwelling becomes a creation, a singular composition of spaces, of lights, in relation to each other, bringing us more beautiful, fresher emotions, closer to architecture, to the attitudes of life" (Ponti, 1937)
If this was the predominant attitude in architecture in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the 1980s and 1990s marked a return to extremism: either the total colors of postmodernism and the Memphis group or the minimal look of Starck, but leaving the home free of the clutter of the past. Clothes and dishes will no longer be stored in armoires and cupboards, but will have rooms dedicated to them such as closets, wardrobes and utility rooms.
And what should we expect from the home of tomorrow ? More and more we are realizing that it is circumstances that "architect" the shape of our ways of living and that designers are merely introducing solutions to the major problems we face. Today, the home must be more sustainable structurally, energetically and decoratively. Emphasis is placed on new materials and new technologies, while for furniture we appeal to the past by introducing vintage furniture with a streamlined and flexible look and, why not, a beautiful selection of antiques.
