Global Tools 1973–1975: When Education Coincides with Life documents and critically retraces the eponymous experience of Radical Design and its multidisciplinary school program “without students or teachers.” The Global Tools was founded in 1973 by groups and figures drawn from Italian Radical Architecture (Archizoom, Superstudio, UFO, Mendini, La Pietra, Pettena, Dalisi, and Sottsass among others), Arte Povera, and Conceptual Art (including Davide Mosconi and Franco Vaccari), and ended in 1975 after three years of intense experimentation. This book is both a commentary and an impressive visual archive that brings together essays by international authors and reproductions of many original documents—including the only two official Global Tools bulletins, entirely republished here for the first time. This unique and definitive book contextualizes this fascinating experience of the late twentieth century within a more complex network of references and links. This work is produced in collaboration with SALT, Istanbul.

Valerio Borgonuovo is a free-lance curator, researcher, and teacher with a post-degree specialization in neuroscience, art and culture management obtained in 2008 at TSM/Trentino School of Management, Trento. Since 2009 he has been engaged in the development and curating of several projects for arts and culture institutions, including SALT Istanbul, La Triennale di Milano, Fondation d’entreprise Ricard in Paris, Futura Center for Contemporary Art in Prague, and Accademia Clementina in Bologna.

Silvia Franceschini is a curator and researcher working across the fields of visual arts, design, and architecture. Selected curatorial projects include the research program The Politics of Affinity. Experiments in Art, Education and the Social Sphere, Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella (2016–18); participation on the curatorial team of The School of Kyiv—Kyiv Biennial 2015; and the exhibition, symposium, and educational program Global Tools 1973–1975: Towards an Ecology of Design, SALT, Istanbul (2014). Since 2009 she has been involved in the organization of exhibitions in various institutions including V-A-C Foundation, Moscow—Venice; The Moscow Biennale for Young Art; Futura—Center for Contemporary Art, Prague; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Franceschini is currently a PhD fellow in Design and Art Theory at the Politecnico di Milano University.