Heritage Landscapes vol.8

"Hello, I'm Matt Lamont, and I've spent over a decade amassing a collection of printed materials." This is how Design Reviewed introduces itself, the website where designer Matt Lamont has put together a collection with the purpose of showcasing the history of graphic design and visual culture of the past century.

Architectural periodicals, National Theatre programs designed by Karen Briggs, magazines (The Japanese Idea, Graphis, Novum, Fuse), matchboxes, German movie posters, monographic design manuals, stamp boxes. Colors, shapes, ideas intertwined over time.

The site contains more than 5,000 objects and 150 years of history, although most items are in the mid-20th century. You can browse by year, by themes such as Travel or Star and Stripes, or by graphic designer. A treasure trove designed to avoid the dust and get closer to people who seek it out for study, curiosity, or inspiration.

A little harbor where to get lost or linger, following invisible threads. Just as Matt says he composed the collection: slipping from booklet to booklet, from sculpture to film, following a path that the objects themselves seemed to suggest. A tapestry that depicts time and our creativity at once, and where small things are never lost, but become part of something we cannot yet see.

The feeling of fate and singularity, the sight of Velazquez and the decision that he could not be a painter because he "could not reach so high." The New York Times, on the occasion of Richard Serra's death, published a precise portrait of the sculptor, tracing his youth and artistic evolution, including photographs of his most famous works, articles, friendships such as Philip Glass or other artists. Until the day he received the diagnosis that he had a tumor in the tear duct of his left eye, and he, in order not to compromise his work as an artist, refused the operation.

On the occasion of Milan Design Week, at the library in Parco Sempione, from April 15 to 28, 2024 there will be an exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of designer Cini Boeri. The brainchild of Antonio Boeri and Giulia Boeri, directors of the Boeri Archive, and curated by Cristina Moro, the exhibition moves through materials from her archive, including lamps, revolving bookcases, the Lunario table for Knoll, the 1967 Bobo armchair, crystal glasses, suitcases and more. To discover, as she herself said, that "Joy is inherent in the act of designing."

250,000 volumes, 1,000 journals, 370,000 photographs. Crossed by generations of archaeologists, historians and scholars. If you are in Rome and feel like poking your nose into history, the Rome branch of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, with the largest library of classical archaeology in Europe, reopened Feb. 12.
Here is an interview with its director, Professor Ortwin Dally.

Credits: Design Reviewed, Matt Lamont; The New York Times, Richard Serra; Triennale di Milano, Archivio Cini Boeri; DAI, Ralf Bockmann.

At Legend23, Strategies For Time Travelers, (the first b2b event dedicated to heritage in Italy, organized and conceived at Promemoria Group), we had the honor of asking a few questions to one of our special guests: architect and AMDL CIRCLE Founder Michele De Lucchi. We wanted to know what the relationship is between archives and architecture, and why the past is so important in a profession as forward-looking as that of the architect.
Here is the video of the interview - some of the best lessons we took home.