Bruno Munari — Square Circle Triangle

Bruno Munari's three studies of basic shapes, The Square, The Circle and The Triangle, collected in a single English volume.

Munari published the first two in the early 1960s and added the triangle roughly ten years later. Each is a compact visual reference: through drawings and short texts, he gathers dozens of ways one form has been used across the centuries, moving between history, anthropology and the natural sciences. The examples range from ancient Egypt and Greece to Buckminster Fuller, Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto. The circle, for instance, turns up in soap bubbles and the rings of a tree, in Michelangelo's Doni Tondo and at King Arthur's round table.

Munari gives each shape its own character. He links the circle with the divine and the square with security and protection, and treats the triangle as a basic form of connection, of particular use to designers.

Corraini Edizioni, 2026. 288 pages, sewn paperback, 15.5 x 15.5 cm. In English.