Imaginative Play

"Foam rubber had recently been developed and was being used to make mattresses and padding. One day a Pirelli manager asked me: "What can you make with foam rubber other than mattresses?". This is how the story of Zizì begins, as told by Bruno Munari: a small and flexible monkey with a wire "skeleton", designed by Munari in the early 1950s, not to be looked at, but to be touched and handled, making the user's mind more flexible: by playing, says Munari, "the mind becomes elastic, thought dynamic. The individual becomes creative". Winner of the first edition of the Compasso d’Oro design award in 1954, Zizì has become a symbol of Italian design, which continues to illustrate Munari’s experimentation, his way of exploring – with great enjoyment – the potential of newer materials, his search for formal essentiality. Corraini Edizioni pays homage to Munari’s design thinking by presenting Zizì as a collector’s piece in its original design, including the graphics chosen for the packaging: a cage that may be opened to free Zizì and start its adventures once again. These Zizì monkeys were produced in 2007 by Tecnoassemblaggi Toys, Brescia. For this Corraini reissue, each Zizì has been refurbished and finished by hand as accurately as possible. Any imperfections are to be considered a characteristic of the object and its history. Zizì is not a toy, but a modern antique collector’s piece. The items are fragile and not free from defects, due to the age of the object.