Munari's Machines - Bruno Munari

Munari's Machines by Bruno Munari / ISBN 9788887942828 / English-language edition published by Corraini Editions in Italy / 28-page hardback, 8.6 x 11.6 inches

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In this book, Bruno Munari describes, with great seriousness and abundance of detail, machines... useful or useless, certainly unusual: machines for predicting the dawn, a lizard motor for tired turtles, a machine for taming alarm clocks, a tail shaker for lazy dogs...

Munari's Machines is a poetic and ironic book that stands out for its inventiveness and creativity. Here Munari shows his ability to fuse art, design and didactics, presenting a series of imaginary machines inspired by the famous American cartoonist Rube Goldberg. Each machine, although the product of pure fantasy, is designed with a sense of realism and functionality, and reflects Munari's profound understanding of the world of design.

Munari's Machines - collected in this book first published by Einaudi in 1942 and available again in the Corraini Edizioni catalogue - are inventions that are as precise as they are impossible. Described and illustrated down to the smallest detail, Munari's machines follow their own fantastic mechanics and rebel, to our great amusement, against the obligation of having to serve something.

Bruno Munari (1907–1998) was an Italian artist and designer who contributed in many fields of both visual (paint, sculpture, film, industrial design, graphics) and non-visual arts (literature, poetry).