Hans Ulrich Obrist – Yes, I see here – there’s a vehicle, a truck, in the picture.
Enzo Mari – The editor [of Bompiani] had a problem, and we’re speaking about the fifties, in that he needed to transport retail books to remote places in the Italian provinces. These remote places were not as we know them today, as they didn’t even have bookstores. We had to create a truck that could be used as a small bookstore. Once it arrived in a small town, people could make use of it like a shop. The truck, from one point of view, presented itself as a bookstore with windows; inside there was a small parlor, a sofa, a small collection of books, where the merchant could receive and converse with the visitors.
images from [I think] Mari’s 2004 book, La Valigia senza manico, reproduced in Hans Ulrich Obrist & Enzo Mari: The Conversation Series – 15 [amazon]