The first to disappear from domestic landscape in the last 20 years, the landline phone has been its undisputed inhabitant, as the most important ass communication device, thruogh an entire century. A presence in almost every single household since postwar years, through the decades this object has stimulated radical reflections in the realm of design per components such as the iconic Ericofon by Ericsson and the 1965 Grillo foldable phone by Richard Sapper and Marco Zanuso for  Siemens.

(Ericofon landline phone by Hugo Blomberg, Ralph Lysell, Hans Gösta Thames for Ericsson, designed since 1949, produced since 1954)

Information, entertainment and the measure of time, integrated. This program has been  deconstructed since long by the appearance of smartphones and tablets, still it has been the perfect expression of an entire era of conception of daily life, interpreted by masters of the revolution of the everyday such as Dieter Rams in his years at Braun.

(ABR21 radio alarm clock by Dieter Rams and Dietrich Lubs for Braun, 1978)

As our ways of communicating were dematerializing, the same happened to our representation and organization of time. Organizers, solar and perpetual calendars are now helping us only when batteries are low, or when our lust for good design demands attention and fulfillment.

(Enzo Mari for Danese. Formosa wall perpetual calendar, 1963; Timor table perpetual calendar, 1966)

Written communication and its paper support gradually transitioned to the immaterial as well as other realms, thus forcing desk sets made of pencil holders, letter paper boxes, and hand rests to step back from the desktops to merge with different components of the office furniture.

( Enzo Mari for Danese. Ustica desk set, Benebecula paper-knife, Delos ashtray. In Domus 678, December 1986)

Along with the landline telephone and the first mobile phones – although equipped with minimum storage – the address book jealously guarding contacts also abandoned the central areas of homes, as well as the inside of bags and briefcases. The address books of certain outstanding figures from politics and sociability used to end up matching the personality of those who owned them, while on the telephone table – another illustrious missing one – of all homes, the often leather-bound address book, often the receptacle of long-call scribbles, used to end up becoming the sometimes sole witness of entire years of family affairs. (Photo Alexey Kopytko on Adobe Stock)

The statutes of the domestic landscape have changed, together with the level of priority we consequently give to objects. Of course, smoking time is always present in houses, but today it is hard to find a table lighter at the center of a room. Once a proper living room jewel, a subject of creation in Art Nouveau and Art Déco era, sparkling in precious metals, nacre, and lacquer, then a loyal ally of the new essential middle-class interiors; today they are more usually hidden in pockets or drawers, portable, constantly lost, possibly empty.

(T2 table lighter by Dieter Rams for Braun, 1968, in an advertising picture on Domus 486, May 1970)

The migration of smoking time within our houses also brought ashtrays in a kind of oblivion; sometimes the most different kinds of objects serve as an ashtray, but there have been times when ashtrays were a proper piece of furniture, as they still are in public spaces.

(Dondolino ashtray by Caimi Brevetti, 1958)

“Coming over for a drink?” In past decades, these words might have evoked a precise image, the paramount expression of integrated furniture philosophy, of foldaway extra functions, of luxury home bars squeezed inside a piece of furniture, of drinking and smoking as the pillars of lounging. Drinking culture has not stopped evolving since then, but bottles nowadays will hardly pop up from the bottom of a coffee table, in response to the single touch of a hand.

(Caori bar-table by Vico Magistretti for Gavina, 1962, in Domus 397, December 1962)

Digital and immaterial communication have in some way overshadowed the magazine rack, the quintessential domestic hub for temporary content, gathering all transient papers together with status symbol magazines (Domus covers blinking from atop)  or working notes.

(magazine rack by Giotto Stoppino for Kartell, 1972, in an advertising picture on Domus 508, March 1972)

The two great phenomena involving the evolution of domestic objects – integration and dematerialisation – have also involved the realm of sound. From Edison’s phonograph via the radio and cassette recorder, through postwar years the functions have been combined in high-fidelity reproduction systems often conceived as true components of domestic environment: integrated, as in the Brionvega radio-phonograph by the Castiglioni brothers; or modular, as in the mode that later became mainstream and was represented by historical projects such as the systems conceived by Dieter Rams for Braun. (Radiofonografo Brionvega rr226 fo-st by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, 1965. Photo Daderot on Wikimedia Commons)

When it appeared in the 1930s – a bit like the radio to which it is the enhanced heir – the television was conceived as a piece of domestic furniture in the same way as armchairs, chests of drawers and glass cabinets, consequently taking on their very language. It remained this way for just over two decades and then transitioned to the realm of objects, mobile and portable by definition, connecting us to the world, with the advent of projects such as Zanuso and Sapper’s Doney for Brionvega, going through hybrid declinations such as those by Rams for Braun, and living through phases such as the ‘all-integrated’ one of the 1960s-70s. Traditional TV is less and less watched, and today one might happen not to notice inside homes frames with more or less questionable images that are actually screens in low emission mode, connected to their owners' various online services.
(TV Brionvega Algol by Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper, 1964. Photo J R on Flickr)

The relationship between household and environment has not evolved without victims: waste paper bins or undifferentiated trash bins have in fact left the word to recycling set, usually designed for the outdoor.

(Chio waste paper bin by Enzo Mari for Danese, 1987, in Domus 695, June 1988)

The kitchen is probably that domestic space where most new objects  have appeared, and least have been dismissed, despite a ceaseless process of technological innovation. Still, the kitchen igniter is less and less a presence, be it some sort of stretched gas lighter, or a piezoelectric device. This had nonetheless had the chance to become a stimulating subject for designers, as it happened with the Firebird and Pyros by Alessi.

(Firebird electric igniter by Guido Venturini for Alessi, 1993, in Domus 787, November 1996)

The transition of relationships to the immaterial has resulted in, among other things, two intangible entities such as e-mail and e-commerce. One has an output that is always immaterial – woe betide you if you print it out – the other very material – the parcel delivered by the courier – but both are unsuitable for the object that for decades has had strategic positions and high attendance rates within the domestic ecosystem, be it individual or collective: the letterbox. A refinedly designed component within many masterpieces of modern architecture, the letterbox area is often still there to enrich them to this day, bearing witness to a different lifestyle. (Photo diesirae on Adobe Stock)