Mitomacchina: the History, Technology and Future of Car Design

Car design is one of the defining legends of the past 100 years. Through its history, much of that most revolutionary of eras, the 20th century, can be charted, and vehicle design looks set to continue to carve out an ever more crucial role for itself in the 21st.

Now, a major new exhibition in Italy is preparing to explore this most iconic of objects, revealing the history of car design and focusing on major innovations in vehicle aesthetics and technology. On display will be the first car ever made with an internal combustion engine - the Benz Dreirad of 1886 - which will feature alongside great names in auto design, from Rolls Royce, Chevrolet and Lamborghini to Mini, Volkswagen and Nissan.

Mitomacchina opens in Trento at Mart (the modern and contemporary art museum of Trento and Rovereto) on December 2nd 2006. It offers a dual approach into the role cars have played in society and design, looking at how vehicles have been protagonists of change, both socially and aesthetically. At the same time, Mitomacchina will survey the designs, industrial processes and test that have accompanied this extraordinary 'object' since its conception in the early 20th century.

Running alongside this look through the vehicle's design and sociological past, the exhibition sets out to reveal the young talent that is shaping the face of future car design. Work by leading young talent from Europe's top design schools is to be represented, including Uros Pavasovic, Johan Jonsson and Jonathan Punter, all of whom graduated from the Vehicle Design department at the Royal College of Art in 2006.

The RCA is also represented in Mitomacchina by Helen Evenden, tutor in Vehicle Design and Critical and Historic Studies at the College. The writer and curator has produced an essay for the catalogue that accompanies the show, which will contemplate "the relationship and tensions between the car and the city".

Evenden's piece looks at the vehicle's (often maligned) presence within the urban landscape and the equally discomforting relationship city dwellers have with the peripheral activities and regulations - from parking wardens and bus lanes to congestion and other charging, road rage and theft - that have developed in tandem with the automobile's inestimable rise.

Mitmacchina: The History, Technology and Future of Car Design is at MartRovereto from 2 December 2006 - 1 May 2007.

http://www.mart.trento.it/context_mostre.j...e=4&area=42
http://www.rca.ac.uk/pages/news/mitomacchi...ology_3674.html

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