| He
has always chosen to take on new, unusual and a bit disquieting arguments. |
doorhandle
>
Aurora
> Venere
>
Time
>
Space
Who is he Alessandro
Mendini
Tebe doorhandle (1992 prod. Olivari)
|
|
from
the book "L'architettura presa per mano" (Hand on architecture) by Stefano Casciani,
Idea Books, Milan, 1992
The work of Mendini
has often been the subject of vivacious polemics: considered one of the "fathers"
of Italian Postmodernism (or rather "Neomodernism", the definition preferred by
him), he has never failed to seize an opportunity to make distinct designer provocations,
striving to stir the somewhat sleepy climate of the field of design.
Editor of magazines, first "Casabella", then "Modo" and finally "Domus" (from
1980 to 1985), he has always chosen to take on new, unusual and a bit disquieting
arguments: from the problems of production to the persistence of kitsch in Western
culture, from the design of weapons to the most audacious artistic experiments.
Elements somehow transmitted to his work as a designer, which he resumed in the
early 1980's, after a pause of ten years. Also here Mendini has kept a surprise
in store for all his denigrators and/or friends. |
 Macaone table
(1987 prod. Zabro) |
| Unexpectedly,
he began designing industrial products characterized by a doubtlessly expressive
charge that however is equally functional, as those by the most convinced modernists.
Shirts, tiles, watches, glasses, lamps, pots, kitchens, of a cultural or popular
inspiration, but all equally inviting a consumation at the same time conscient
and nonchalant. |
|
|
|
|
After
years of reflecting on the mechanisms of design, the production and sale of goods,
Mendini has evidently acquired an infallible "non-method" of design, which he
has at times defined, with self-irony, a "theory of the banal".
Designs such as the doorhandles made for Olivari in 1991 are examples of this;
after studying the various formal possibilities, the definitive choice established
with the company is oriented towards the most "classical" version: a cone, a sphere
and a connected spindle, of carefully studied proportions.
Another surprise, a "neoclassical" Mendini designing an object which, nevertheless,
appears completely new. |
 Decorated
room, Kaess-Weiss Gallery (1988)
|
|
|
(c) 1998 - 2000 OLIVARI
|
