Carlo Ratti's 'Objectify' series reconsiders the mosquito coil as Italian design

Architect Carlo Ratti launches a summer column for Wallpaper* titled 'Objectify', exploring Italy through overlooked everyday objects. The first installment examines the mosquito coil, known in Italy as the zampirone. Ratti traces its origins to 19th-century Venice, where pharmacist Giovanni Battista Zampironi created insect-repellent cones from Caucasian chrysanthemum powder. A later innovation by Yuki, wife of a Japanese incense manufacturer, transformed the design into a flat spiral that burns for up to seven hours. Ratti contrasts the Italian approach to mosquitoes—open windows and negotiated boundaries—with an Anglo-Saxon strategy of sealing homes with air conditioning. He describes the zampirone as a 'technology of compromise' that creates temporary habitability rather than a barrier, opposing the hygienist ideology of the Modern Movement. The column promises to highlight unglamorous Italian objects like the condom and motorway toll transponder, aiming to reveal their design significance. Ratti, who directs the MIT Senseable City Lab and curated the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, will publish weekly in Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore and in English for Wallpaper*.