Luxury, Bruno Munari

In today's world (or at least the wealthy part of the world we live in) the term "luxury" has become almost ubiquitous, especially in the design industry which I belong to. During the early years of my design education I read this short essay by Bruno Munari which has helped shape my design principles and the way I look at design problems. Below is another extract from his 1981 book on design methodology Da Cosa Nasce Cosa, Appunti per una Metodologia Progettuale (One Thing Leads to Another, Notes on Design Methodology).

"Luxury is the manifestation of uncivilized richness that wants to impress who is poor. It is the manifestation of the importance given to exteriority and reveals the lack of interest for cultural erudition. It is the triumph of appearance over substance.

Luxury is a necessity for people who want to feel a sense of dominance over others. But if those others are civilized they will understand that luxury is pretence, if they are ignorant people they will admire and even envy those who live in luxury. But who cares about the admiration of ignorant people? Perhaps fools. Luxury is indeed a manifestation of foolishness. For instance: what do you need golden faucets for? If from those faucets it comes out polluted water wouldn’t it be better to spend money on a water depurator and use regular faucets? Then luxury is the wrong use of expensive material that does not improve function, and therefore it is foolish.

[…]

In conclusion, luxury is not a design issue."

Da Cosa Nasce Cosa, Bruno Munari, Laterza 1981.