Alberto Seassaro. The demiurge

This volume is part of Design Philology editorial project aimed at enhancing the history of design at Politecnico di Milano and, in particular, inaugurates the series The Masters, dedicated to the figures whose thought has fueled the cultural pluralism that is the hallmark of the entire institutional project. The remembrance of the Masters begins with Alberto Seassaro, the demiurge, a Dean capable of giving Design a home by conceiving and building the first Italian Faculty at Politecnico di Milano and guiding it to the scope we know today: that of a major international system for education and research. A designing intelligence, he is owed the construction of the cultural community of the Italian Design System. It was no simple challenge, because in the case of design we are dealing not only with a discipline worthy of teaching and autonomous research paths, but also with an emergent phenomenon of Italian culture whose outcomes are celebrated as the splendors of an imaginative synthesis that has become, beyond our country as well, a model of invention.
In the background of this quasi-biographical account lie the intertwinings with the worlds of art, architecture, and design, and the cultural imprint toward experimentation that Alberto Seassaro received during his formative years at Politecnico di Milano.