L’altro modernismo : Torino e l’associazione Progresso Grafico per la divulgazione della cultura grafica

This paper explores the role of the Turin-based cultural association Progresso Grafico in shaping and disseminating a graphic culture rooted in typographic tradition and printing practice during the postwar period. Drawing on archival sources held in the association’s Historical Archive at the Politecnico di Torino, largely unpublished and not yet systematically organized, it reconstructs the aims, networks, and cultural activities that supported the development of a model of graphic design combining technical expertise with a deep historical and cultural understanding of the art of printing. In this respect, the Turin experience offers a counterpoint to the Milanese context, which was more strongly oriented toward industrial and advertising communication. As such, it may be understood as an “alternative modernism”. This experience helps to highlight the diversity of the Italian graphic design landscape of the period, while proposing a reinterpretation that complements the dominant modernist narrative with a parallel trajectory grounded in typographic culture and a hybrid technical-humanistic education.