Edited by his son Paolo, who has brought together scholars and critics of the history of design and architecture to reconstruct the figure of his father Alberto, an architect who was a leading figure in the culture of Italian design after World War II, this rich volume is also a valid contribution that enriches the multilinear history of Italian design. Published with the support of Saporiti, a Furniture company with which Rosselli conducted innovative research into materials and forms (the iconic Jumbo armchair and easy chair of 1968, the Moby Dick armchair of 1969, just to mention two outstanding examples), the book is an anthology of critical essays devoted to various aspects of the achievement of Alberto Rossellli (architecture, the home, design.) It creates a continuous and synergic interplay of references and interwoven themes in the definition of a design development aimed at the search for unity between technical knowledge and aesthetic value. At the same time the volume acquires the value of a document by bringing together in its central section all the editorials by Alberto Rosselli printed in Stile e Industria (1954-1963), the magazine published by Editoriale Domus which he edited, devoted to the value and dissemination of the culture of embryonic industrial design as a tool for elevating practical objects of the most varied kinds to a Factor for the improvement of the quality of life. In the famous editorial of the first ssue ("Design Factor of Quality"), a comparison between two office staplers provided the occasion to explain clearly what industrial design is Rosselli wrote "A machine, a mass-produced object is no longer bound only to the laws of technology and economics. Through design, it becomes a form, it acquires a line that it previously did not possess". Rosselli's editorials were programmatic and, as his son Paolo states in the afterword, they are "dense editorials, filled with directives and commandments, [that] aspire to build the national pedagogy of the designer".
