Bruno Munari, Abitacolo, 1971. A kids playground.
His interest in childhood, born with his experience as a father, leads him to maintain his book production constantly active: play that helps a child develop curiosity for the outside world and refines his or her sensory capabilities. Books (just like the “Unreadable Books”) become games: pages not connected to each other, with color drawings printed on transparent plastic, may be freely superimposed to compose stories that are always different. Pages of motley materials offer children new sensory experiences. Differently shaped pages may be used as a trace to draw new forms.
And still for children, in 1971 he designs “Abitacolo”, a multi-functional structure in steel that, in a minimal space, allows the child to create a habitat to use and live in as he or she personally chooses. His role as educator becomes a patented pedagogical method that uses didactic games and small books containing very few words, privileging the observation of nature and considering the child’s cognitive process more important than the final result. Defined as a “Peter Pan of the stature of Leonardo” (Pierre Restany), Munari has left us a precious inheritance and a light and poetic example of life, one that may help us to “see the rainbow in profile”. Source
Design is fine. History is mine. 