EXHIBITION. “Automobile and Household Appliance. The domestication of the machine”

The exhibition focuses on several models of automobiles and household appliances that we consider essential to understand the importance of design in the process of domestication of technology in the home, in the most creative moment of the evolution of this discipline, as was the first half of the last century. These objects, mass-produced, were slow to be accepted because of their clumsy and noisy presence. At first, the vehicles were driven by professional drivers and the electric companies sold their first domestic appliances accompanied by courses on home electrification. It was the task of engineering and design to create friendly and intuitive machines aimed at consumers, with hardly any technical knowledge, who had to understand the new energy sources as tools for social improvement. Efficiency and ease of use acted as key stimuli for the development of these products that represented modernity and progress, and whose aesthetic demands were linked to the need for market success.