The Memphis Group
Memphis, one of the most fascinating recent phenomena in the field of furniture and object design. Memphis explored a visual language outside of the limiting canons of ‘good taste”, blurring the boundaries between "high" or popular culture and mass-produced "ordinary" consumer goods.
The Memphis Group was in fluential Italian design and architecture movement of the 1980s. The group was found by Ettore Sottsass on 16 December 1980, and resolved to meeting with their designs in February 1981. The result was highly-acclaimed debut at the 1981 Salone Mobile of Milan, the world’s most prestigious furniture fair. The group, which eventually counted among its members Martine Bedin, Andrea Branzi, Aldo Cibic, Michele de Lucchi, Nathalie du Pasquier, Micheal Graves, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Shiro Kuromata, Matteo Thun, Javier Mariscal, George J. Sowden, Marco Zanini, and the journalist Barbara Rasice, disbanded in year 1988.
Named after the Bob Dylan song ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”, Memphis was a reaction against the post-Bauhaus “block box” design of the 1970s and had a sense of humour that was lacking at the time in design. Ettore Sottsass called Memphis design the “New International Style”. In contrast the Memphis Group offered bright, colourful, shocking pieces. The colours they used contrasted the dark blacks and browns of European furniture. The world tasteful is not normally associated with products generated by the Memphis Group but they were certainly ground breaking at the time. All this was seemed to suggest that the Memphis Group was very superficial but that was far from the truth. The group intended to develop a new creative approach to design.
In 11th December 1980, Sttore Sottsass organised a meeting with other such famous designers. They drew inspiration form such movements as Art Deco and Pop Art, style such as the 1950s Kitsch and futuristic themes. They concept were in stark contrast to so called ‘Good Design’.
Memphis, one of the most fascinating recent phenomena in the field of furniture and object design. Memphis explored a visual language outside of the limiting canons of ‘good taste”, blurring the boundaries between "high" or popular culture and mass-produced "ordinary" consumer goods.
The Memphis Group was in fluential Italian design and architecture movement of the 1980s. The group was found by Ettore Sottsass on 16 December 1980, and resolved to meeting with their designs in February 1981. The result was highly-acclaimed debut at the 1981 Salone Mobile of Milan, the world’s most prestigious furniture fair. The group, which eventually counted among its members Martine Bedin, Andrea Branzi, Aldo Cibic, Michele de Lucchi, Nathalie du Pasquier, Micheal Graves, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Shiro Kuromata, Matteo Thun, Javier Mariscal, George J. Sowden, Marco Zanini, and the journalist Barbara Rasice, disbanded in year 1988.
Named after the Bob Dylan song ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”, Memphis was a reaction against the post-Bauhaus “block box” design of the 1970s and had a sense of humour that was lacking at the time in design. Ettore Sottsass called Memphis design the “New International Style”. In contrast the Memphis Group offered bright, colourful, shocking pieces. The colours they used contrasted the dark blacks and browns of European furniture. The world tasteful is not normally associated with products generated by the Memphis Group but they were certainly ground breaking at the time. All this was seemed to suggest that the Memphis Group was very superficial but that was far from the truth. The group intended to develop a new creative approach to design.
In 11th December 1980, Sttore Sottsass organised a meeting with other such famous designers. They drew inspiration form such movements as Art Deco and Pop Art, style such as the 1950s Kitsch and futuristic themes. They concept were in stark contrast to so called ‘Good Design’.
Theoretical Concepts For Memphis
Prepare to mix 20th century styles, colours and materials, it positioned itself as a fashion rather than academic movement, and hope to erase the International Style where Postmodernism had failed, preferring an outright revival and continuation of Modernism proper rather than a re-reading of it. The Memphis group was comprised of Italian designers and architects who created a series of highly influential products in the 1980s. They disagreed with the approach of the time and challenged the idea that products had to follow conventional shapes, colours, textures and patterns.
The work of the Memphis Group has been described as vibrant, eccentric and ornamental. It was conceived by the group to be a ‘fad’, which like all fashions would very quickly come to an end. In 1988 Sottsass dismantled the group.
For more information about Memphis please go to this link:
http://www.designmuseum.org/design/ettore-sottsass
Memphis Artist – Ettore Sottsass
Ettore Sottsass was born in September 14, 1917, in Innsbruck, Austria, and grew up in Milan, where his father was an architect. In 1939 he graduated from Politecnico di Torino in Turin with a degree in architecture. He served in the Italian military and spent much of World War II in a concentration camp in Yugoslavia. After returning from the war, he set up his own architectural and industrial design studio in Milan in 1974, one of a new group of Italian designers which included Gio Ponti and Carlo Mollino dedicated to postwar reconstruction.For more information about Ettore Sottsass please go to this link:
http://www.designmuseum.org/design/memphis
http://www.designmuseum.org/design/memphis
