Justine: You know, Rachel, I had a complete meltdown this morning with my vegetable peeler. It’s one of those sleek, fancy-looking ones, but it just… mutilates carrots. It’s infuriating. Why is it so hard to make a good peeler? Rachel: That is the perfect question for today. Because most of us think of art as something priceless hanging in a museum. But our guest today, in spirit, would argue the most important piece of art you own isn't a painting, but a perfectly designed fork. Justine: A fork? Okay, I'm listening. Rachel: And that beautiful rose in your garden? He’d say it's actually a design failure. Justine: Whoa, hold on. A design failure? Who is this person taking shots at roses? Rachel: He is the one and only Bruno Munari, and the book is Design as Art. Munari was an Italian artist and designer so brilliant and versatile that Picasso himself reportedly called him “the new Leonardo.” Justine: Okay, 'the new Leonardo' is a heavy title. So what was his big idea? Rachel: His mission was to tear down the wall between Art with a capital 'A' and everyday life. He believed that for too long, art had been locked away in galleries, speaking a language only a few elites could understand. He wanted to bring it back to the people. Justine: I can get behind that. But to call a rose bad design… you must have a pretty radical definition of what 'good design' is. Where does he even start with that? Rachel: He starts by killing a myth. The myth of the 'Great Artist.'

Justine: Killing the myth of the Great Artist? That sounds a little dramatic. Is he saying we should get rid of painters and sculptors? Rachel: Not at all. He's not against the art, he's against the isolation of the artist. He saw this figure—the brooding genius creating a single, unique, enormously expensive masterpiece for a tiny circle of critics and collectors—as an outdated concept. Justine: Huh. So what's the alternative? Rachel: The alternative is the designer. Munari saw a movement where artists were desperately trying to reconnect with society. They were tired of the exclusive art world. They wanted to create things for everyone, things you could find in a department store, not just a gallery. They wanted to make art a mass affair. Justine: That makes sense. It’s like the difference between a Michelin-starred chef who creates a single, thousand-dollar dish for one person, and a chef who perfects the most delicious, affordable, life-changing street taco that everyone in the city can enjoy. Rachel: That is a perfect analogy. And to make that perfect taco, the artist has to change. They have to stop thinking about their own subjective whims and start thinking about objective values: What do people need? How does this function? How can it be made well and affordably? In short, the artist has to become a designer. Justine: So the designer is the hero of this story. The one who bridges the gap. Rachel: Exactly. And for Munari, this wasn't some new, radical idea. It was a return to something ancient. He tells this beautiful little story about an Etruscan vase. Justine: Oh, I like the sound of that. Rachel: Thousands of years ago, an Etruscan craftsman needed to make a container for cooking oil. He didn't think of himself as a 'Great Artist.' He was a tradesman. But he made this vase with such care, with such perfect proportions and attention to its function, that today, we pull that very same oil jug out of the ground and put it in a museum. We call it a masterpiece. Justine: Wow. So for the Etruscans, there was no difference between a useful object and a work of art. Rachel: Precisely. That's the world Munari wants us to return to. A world where art and life are one. And to get there, he says the artist needs to regain a sense of modesty. They need to stop despising the very public they're trying to reach and instead, discover their needs. Justine: Okay, I'm sold on the 'why.' The designer's job is to make useful, beautiful things for everyone. But that brings me back to my original question. What are the rules? How does a designer decide that a fork is 'good design' and a rose is 'bad design'? Rachel: Ah, for that, we have to understand the designer's method. And it starts with a fierce battle: the designer versus the stylist.

Justine: Designer versus stylist. What’s the difference? I feel like people use those words interchangeably. Rachel: Oh, for Munari, they are worlds apart. A designer, in his view, creates form based on logic and function. A stylist, on the other hand, just slaps a fashionable look onto something, whether it makes sense or not. The stylist is concerned with ephemeral trends; the designer is concerned with timeless coherence. Justine: Can you give me an example? This feels a little abstract. Rachel: He gives the most hilarious and perfect example. He talks about the 'aerodynamic style' that was popular in the mid-century. It makes sense for a plane or a race car, right? But then manufacturers started applying it to everything. Electric irons, armchairs… Justine: Wait, an aerodynamic armchair? Rachel: And the grand finale of this trend, he says, was the aerodynamic hearse. Justine: No! Come on. An aerodynamic hearse? For what, racing to the cemetery? Rachel: Exactly! It's the peak of absurdity. It has 'style,' but the form has absolutely nothing to do with the function. That is the work of a stylist. A designer, Munari says, would let the object's purpose dictate its shape. The form follows the function. Justine: That’s brilliant. It’s like putting racing stripes on a toaster. It doesn't make the toast come out any faster. It’s just… decoration. Rachel: It's pure styling. And this is why he looks to nature for examples of good design. He does this amazing breakdown of an orange. Justine: The fruit? Rachel: Yes. He analyzes it like an Apple engineer analyzing an iPhone. He says the orange is an almost perfect object. It’s modular, with pre-sliced segments. The segments are held in a container with a protective outer layer that’s tough, but with a soft, shock-absorbent pith on the inside. The color signals when it’s ready to be consumed. And, as a bonus, it comes with a 'free gift' for the consumer: seeds, so you can make more. Every part is coherent and logical. Justine: I will never look at an orange the same way again. It’s a little pre-packaged marvel. Okay, that's good design. So what's his beef with the rose? Rachel: Well, applying the same cold, logical design analysis, he finds the rose to be a mess. Justine: A mess? But it's beautiful! Rachel: From a design perspective, he argues it's useless. It produces nothing of value, unlike the orange. It’s purely decorative. He says its production is chaotic. And the thorns? He calls them a crude and aggressive defense mechanism. It’s an object that is all style and no substance. It exists only to be looked at. Justine: Wow. That is a brutal takedown of the world's most romantic flower. But I see his point. The orange has an internal logic. The rose is just… pretty. Rachel: And for Munari, that's not enough. Beauty should come from the precision of the solution, from the logic of the construction. Not just from being pretty.

Justine: So, what I'm really taking away from this is that Munari is giving us a new lens to see the world. It’s a way of looking past the surface. It’s not just about what's beautiful or ugly, but about looking for coherence, for a kind of quiet intelligence in the things we use every day. Rachel: Exactly. And it's a deeply humanistic vision. He's not just a cold rationalist. He believes that when the objects we use every day and the surroundings we live in have become in themselves a work of art, then we shall be able to say that we have achieved a balanced life. Justine: A balanced life. That’s a much bigger goal than just making a nice-looking chair. Rachel: It is. He's not just talking about aesthetics; he's talking about a way of living where there's no separation between the practical and the beautiful, between our work and our spirit. It’s about finding harmony in the everyday. Justine: It makes you want to go through your own house and do a 'Munari audit.' To really look at the things you own and ask: Is this an aerodynamic hearse, or is this an orange? Is it just styling, or does it have that beautiful, logical coherence? Rachel: I think he would love that. And you might just find that your simplest, most functional object—that wooden spoon that’s been worn down over years to perfectly fit the curve of your favorite pot—is the truest piece of art you own. Justine: A powerful and humbling way to look at the world. It’s a reminder that good design isn't about shouting for attention, but about quietly and perfectly doing its job. Rachel: This is Aibrary, signing off.