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And in 2017, the movement made its way to a big box retailer—West Elm debuted a series from contemporary Du Pasquier-inspired brand Dusen Dusen. In 1996, the Memphis-Milano brand was purchased by Alberto Bianchi Albrici, who continues to produce the collective's original 1980s designs. Sottsass came out of the Radical Design and anti-design movements in Italy starting in the 1960s. His early work included sculptural furniture that he called "totems" that are now housed in prominent international museums like the Met in New York City.
Memphis design is having a moment—again - Curbed
Memphis design is having a moment—again.
Posted: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 07:00:00 GMT [source]
What You Need to Know about Memphis Design Pioneer Ettore Sottsass
As with most Memphis design furniture, The Carlton is made from laminated MDF in different, clashing colors. What makes this piece extra interesting, however, is the fact that it is seen and can be used as a room divider, a dresser, and a bookcase. Although its unconventional shape makes it seem more like a modern art installation of a sort. Among the list of products that they designed and manufactured were Memphis-style furniture, ceramics, Memphis patterns, lights, and fabrics. They considered each piece to be a rebellious statement and in no sense timeless, but rather a political statement as a protest of the functional and neutral modernism period.
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Austrian-born, Italian architect and designer Ettore Sottsass formed the Memphis Design Group in his Milan living room in 1980. He and a collective of international designers united in a desire to shake up the design world introduced 55 pieces at Milan's Salone del Mobile in 1981, creating a love-it-or-hate-it style that instantly became famous around the globe. Although Streamline Moderne houses are less common than streamline commercial buildings, residences do exist. The Lydecker House in Los Angeles, built by Howard Lydecker, is an example of Streamline Moderne design in residential architecture.
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“The simplest thing was to walk out and close it down.” Sottsass left the group in 1985, and it officially disbanded in 1988. Karl Lagerfeld sold his collection at Sotheby’s in 1991, but despite some high profile fans such as Sofia Coppola, by the late 90s Memphis’s afterglow had faded. In December 1980, Memphis was born when a group of designers got together in Sottsass’s small Milan apartment. They had been listening to Bob Dylan records, and the group’s cheeky name is in part a reference to his song, “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again,” as well as the ancient capital of Egypt and the modern city in Tennessee. Though Sottsass has been considered the group’s leader, that is not a position Sottsass would have wanted to take on.
Although many people ridiculed their work, the Memphis group were groundbreaking. Their use of clashing colours, haphazard arrangements and brightly coloured plastic laminate was previously unseen. Memphis changed this with a more creative approach to design, where they poked fun at every day objects by designing them in a way that was unusual. By prioritizing art, the Memphis movement attributed aesthetic and emotional value to design with references that border on the fantastic.
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Almost every one includes a set of various elements (mouse or hand-drawn), all highly contrastive. Fake 3D motif is also a widely-spread trend in older Memphis artworks — which you can slightly “modernize” by combining an 80s pattern with pixel graphics of the ’90s. Speaking of colors, today’s understanding of the ’80s art allows both neon tints and far more minimalist solutions with black and white as the primary colors. Memphis group debuted in 1980 at the Salone del Mobile of Milan, a popular furniture fair.
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Also the Pop Art movement of the 60s, which challenged highbrow taste by incorporating elements of popular “low” culture. The birth of Memphis Design was a lot like this, starting with a gathering of architects and industrial designers in Milan, Italy in 1981. It was the general state of design—how creativity had stagnated to become corporate and uniform. Memphis Design embraced a radical mix of bold colors, clashing patterns, and a fearless mishmash of styles that made it unlike anything that had come before or has come along since. Designed by the movement’s founder Italian architect Ettore Sottsass in 1981, the luxury piece features multi-colored shapes made from inexpensive MDF and plastic laminate. An example of this style is the Aquatic Park Bathhouse in the Aquatic Park Historic District, in San Francisco.
The radical design movement that defined the look of the ‘80s and how it is still very much alive and well.
This was capped by the emerging MTV channel adopting the aesthetic for its logo. Predictably, this exposition caused a stir in the design community, and soon enough, even its haters found it difficult to avoid the trend. The Memphis Design movement, named after lyrics from the Bob Dylan album Blonde on Blonde that had christened the event, was everywhere.
Alessandro Mendini, who was also a founder of the Memphis group, was commissioned by the streetwear and skateboard company Supreme to design a set of skateboards that reflected the Memphis style. Although the skateboards consist of obvious Memphis design style characteristics, Mendini did add a modern twist to it with the addition of a splash of cyan to the mix of widely used pale pink, orange, and teal. Memphis designers preferred the combination of unconventional hues such as magenta, lime, teal, and orange. These colors were usually clashing and some odd hues like pastels were introduced which made the pieces look even more out of place in comparison. Below we will be taking a look at how these designers came to form or be part of the Memphis group, as well as the design pieces that they are known for.
More commonly, you will see Memphis design overlaid onto the letters themselves. This can be especially useful with 3D lettering, which gives the designer even more surface planes on which to apply Memphis patterns. This style usually works best on creative wordmarks or hand-lettering projects, which can afford to be creative and colorful at the potential expense of legibility. Using a Memphis Design pattern as part of the background is one of the most common ways you’ll see this style employed.
Built from sections of laminated MDF, the Carlton could be seen as a bookcase, a room divider or a dresser – or all three – but like many of the Memphis Group's creations, it seems equally comfortable as a modern art installation. The original Memphis Group created a wide range of bizarre creations that won celebrity fans from Karl Lagerfeld to David Bowie. The Ashoka lamp is one of them – but arguably the most iconic of all, and therefore the perfect start to this list, is Ettore Sottsass' Carlton. Many of the examples featured below are from the last five years, and some of them see original Memphis Group members returning to form. The angular design on the surface screams retro-cool, while the minimal shape and legs feel modern enough to fit into any living room space.
Memphis presented a quintessence of Art Deco, Pop Art, and 1950s Kitch and yet it definitely grabbed the attention of the masses, it was mostly rejected commercially. So it rather became a cult for some creative eccentrics than a movement to overwhelm the market. And the introduction of Memphis style was not just another stage in design history — but a rebel of the ’80s aesthetic against the uniform and slick ’70s. Nathalie Du Pasquier wasn't the only original Memphis Group member to enjoy a resurgence as part of the modern Memphis movement. In 2016, her fellow collaborator Alessandro Mendini was commissioned by streetwear brand Supreme to design a set of skateboards in the Memphis style. Later that year, Walala also took over Islington-based design store Aria with an extensive new range of Memphis-style products as part of London Design Week – encompassing furniture, ceramics, prints, shelving and more.
