Thanks dear.
Thank you all and good morning and thank you for being here.
What would I do with 40 minutes a day more?
I would keep them aside because I would like to spend them every 50 years,
so in the future,
to see how the design has evolved over the years,
so – yes, I’m very curious about this.
Now, I would like to start with a question:
Which one do you like most about these two cars?
From here I do not see you very well, anyway …
Who chooses the red?
Who chooses the white?
Ok!
I got it.
Being from Modena I had to choose
two cars, of course, by Maserati and Ferrari,
otherwise they would have kicked me!
However, today we talk about when a design becomes timeless:
in the recipe of timeless design,
which are the ingredients.
After the crisis of ’29
big companies have started
to pose the problem of increasing the beauty of things,
to start drawing ever more beautiful objects.
Because, obviously, after the crisis they had to attract people
to buy new machines and new objects.
So you see the left one, the car before the streamline,
that is this design movement, and then the car later,
so you see it drawn by the wind.
“Streamline” stands for “drawn by the wind”.
So you will notice how much this car
was much more engaging, compared to the first machine.
This thing was not just done in cars:
But tonight I’ll talk about cars
for the simple reason that all of us
we know, we have owned, we drive more or less all a car
so we can understand the object.
But in these years, after the ’30s,
many designers have begun, physically,
apply these curved lines, these streamlines,
also to objects that had nothing to do with the bike.
Then the cutters, or an iron, or a fan.
So in fact it started to study
the reason why people were attracted to the object,
that is, they wanted to attract people
to buy this item.
Obviously the commercial successes
they were not all related to the fact of design,
why then what happened?
I do not know if you remember the movies of the fifties
where there were all these very nice and well cared cars,
where the color and the shapes were very, very refined.
After that, several designers said:
“Ok let’s break with the past and do stuff like that”
So, I do not know, the Panda, that we all know,
the Prinz, the Two Horses and the Mini.
These are the successful and commercial cases
but that did not have to do
with what I will explain to you today,
that is, they were commercial successes
due to the fact of the economy,
that is, if they were cheap to buy, they were available,
they were brilliant at the level of use.
And we all remember these cars fondly
because maybe it was the first car we used
or that of the grandfather who gave it to us as an inheritance, and so on.
So we bonded emotionally,
and the commercial successes have had this motivation,
that is, these lines in my theory
they are not lines that we can show a person
of five generations forward and say, “Do you like it?”.
So, the recipe for a timeless design: there are three things.
The curves, the proportions and the expressions.
And here I prepared a couple of slides to show you these things,
because there is no other way [to transmit them].
The first ingredient of this recipe are the curves,
and here we say everything.
I mean … see …
Why did I choose the curves of a female body?
Because I think it is
the most beautiful expression
of this type of curves I will talk about today,
so much so that there is also a book called
“Curvology, the power of the lines of the female body”,
and basically considered that in nature
it is very difficult to find a perfect circle,
therefore circle arcs do not exist;
but they are all very sinuous lines,
lines with variable lacing that we will see in a moment.
So we are attracted to a woman’s body
because I always say that man has software in his head
that makes him want the female hardware,
obviously because we want to reproduce,
and therefore we are attracted by the curves.
But not only that, even a woman can perceive this value
because obviously we were all children,
we were all breastfed
and so mom has always been seen
as a reference point, the nest to turn to.
So for us these curves are in our DNA,
they are in our head, they are already accepted.
These curves are also found in nature,
in mammals they are obviously the most similar ones
what we see even in other mammals,
so we have here a feline, a dolphin …
you see that the progression of these curves
it is always very sweet, and always very special.
These curves are also present in mathematics:
in mathematics they have been described as split lines, such as clotoid curves,
And especially us now when we draw
we use these split lines,
that are these curves that have no hesitation.
Basically, I’ll give you some practical examples:
a classical curve of this type is called a clotoid
and all of us, every day, while we drive a car,
we walk a clotoid
because the clotoid is a variable radius curve,
so it’s not an arc of a circle just to say,
because all the roads are made with this progression.
So we, when we arrive,
it is not that we bend directly to a constant ray,
otherwise we would go out of the way.
Another interesting thing about the clotoid is, for example
that in the design of all its products,
from the IMac, the IPhone, the IPad, etc.
Apple used clotoid edges, so they are not arc rays
and you can notice it because the light
always hits the surface constantly,
always without having clear points of light of detachment,
so there is a progression.
First recipe, therefore, the curves.
The curves must have this harmony.
The second recipe is the proportions.
I had a little difficulty here
because I wanted to find images
to show you of wrong proportions
but I did not want to offend other designers,
so I wrote on Google “ugly car”, that is “ugly cars”.
These gentlemen have designed cars with curves;
here there was nothing straight, but the proportions are wrong:
for example, one seems to have lips …
a surgeon who did not go very well [the operation] the one below-
you do not need to explain it, you understand it directly,
I chose these images for this reason,
that is, they are curves that are not accepted by our memory,
because there is something wrong.
One is too far forward, the other has the mouth a little like that, and so on.
So the second ingredient of this recipe is the proportions,
which obviously can not be wrong,
but then we will see examples of correct curves.
The third ingredient is the expressions,
and here I would like to invite you to play a game:
in the evening, when you drive on the highway, I advise you to slow down a nap.
I say in the evening because it’s easier to see
the headlights of the cars that overtake you,
you put on the right of course …
[A] every machine that surpasses you, try to keep it in the field of vision,
and play a game with the person who is with you in the car and say:
“This car is sad … this car laughs …”
and you will see that there are these expressions.
These expressions are fantastic
because you see some sad cars,
of cars with angry headlights, of funny cars.
And this gives an impression,
that is, we remember the faces of people
and therefore is remembered in the form of the headlights,
so much so that Fiat in America advertises the 500 saying
“There are enough angry cars running around on the street,
so buy the 500 which is much more friendly “,
so very nice.
Then in the recipe the three ingredients
they are curves, proportions and expressions.
Last week we had 70 years of Ferrari,
and I went downtown
to take photographs for this event
because we were lucky
that many owners of these vintage cars
they took them to the historical center
and so we were lucky enough to look at the pieces
which are usually seen only in museums or on the internet.
The first is this photograph, Enzo Ferrari museum,
of a pylon of a maquette
where the cars were designed and designed
where, basically, the wire went around
of all the objects they positioned.
Then they were positioned: two wheels; four wheels; engine; pilot-
and then with this wire was made this framework.
This framework,
for its softness and ductility of the wire
continued to acquire these curves I told you before,
therefore very soft curves, without hesitation.
Here I show you some pictures
that I exaggerated with an HDR filter
so you can see the reflections on these curves
and to be able to better appreciate the curves themselves, the proportions.
Here you can make parallels with female bodies, animals, or fish.
Here you see that there is nothing wrong,
that is, your brain knows that this thing is a beautiful thing, accepted,
which is part of our DNA, of what I have explained to you before.
Here we have more photos …
Here, at the end of this speech I want to say:
these, according to my opinion, are objects
that once made to see
to a person of “n” generations in front of us
can be accepted and judged
like very beautiful lines.
That’s why you answered me all before,
the red and not the white.
So this is my theory
and I invite you to move this reasoning
not only on the car, but on many other fields.
Colors: the most accepted colors, the most beautiful colors,
those that make us feel better are those of nature,
those that we are used to seeing in the fields, in the seas, in the lakes.
In fashion!
In fashion, a classic dress is always good, it is always accepted
rather than the trend that comes out for example for a year
and after that he does not like it anymore.
Music: classical music is always beautiful, always evergreen, timeless.
Maybe other styles that are good for a summer do not like them all.
Even when you’re going out now and you’re watching motorcycles,
other objects and things of this kind,
you will see that if you like this object,
in fact it will have correct curves, proportions and expressions.
I finish by saying, this is the proof of the nine.
If you try to do something that suits a woman
taking cues from a car,
the thing just can not work.
That’s all.
Thank you all!
(Applause)
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