Mediterranean Design: Action-Research on Capodimonte Porcelain

The Moroccan poet Mohammed Bennis writes that the Mediterranean “[…] is no longer just a historical and geographical entity […] it has turned into an idea, aspiring to reconcile its own peculiarities – that is, plurality, variety and diversity. […] Mediterranean culture embodied tolerance, dialogue, and open-mindedness. It was a song of migration and a shared imagination. It would reconnect what politics and economy would divide”. This cultural idea of the Mediterranean, that joins plurality, variety and diversity, can help to ease tension between two cultural territories that often lie apart and need reconnection, that is design and craftsmanship. The Mediterranean man has become skilled at building bonds, connections, bridges. This inclination makes for a gentle, yet deep harmonisation of “different worlds’’. There are no miraculous solutions, all we can do is patiently listen and understand those that appear as “islands”, kept apart by the sea. The paper, in its final portion, will describe the educational activities carried out both during an Industrial Design Laboratory – in the context of a Bachelor’s Degree – and in a few graduation theses where students designed porcelain items to be manufactured in Capodimonte, which forms part of the local production excellence in Campania. Regardless of its outcome(which was, by the way, indeed interesting), such an experience falls within the framework of a mediterraneanization of design culture, enabling it to build connections where there are none, and where separation seems irreconcilable