Tuesday 29 January 2013

Alessandro Mendini

This Italian designer, architect and journalist was born in 1931. He worked with famous magazines like Casabella, Moda and Domus. He studied at the polytechnic University of Milan. Mendini had Dadaist and Anti-Design ideas. 


His Praust chair designed in 1978 is one of the most famous designs. From this chair onward, Mendini created a furniture line of re-designs. He had come across a copy of a neo-arabesque chair from the 18th century in France. He covered the chair in colourful, hand-painted dots. It is inspired  from the impressionism movement, he attempted to re-create the atmospheric appearance of nature. This was a unique piece, but was replicated into several different designs by Mendini Studio. This design was a cost-saving, classic and original functional construction.

The Wassily chair re-design was produced in 1983. It had a chrome-plated steel frame and leather seat, backrest and armrests. He re-design the famous Wassily chair, 1925 by Breuer, by adding different colours and textures, trying to add ornament detail and decorative aspects. He added a smug effect to the leather, incorporating the military pattern in it. He modernized it and was a pretty innovative design for the 1970's.
The original Wassily Chair by Breuer

Another re-design from Mendini was Rietveld's Zig-Zag chair, designed in 1978 in Milan, with wood. He designed the back to form a cross and represent a pert religiousness, which caused a lot of controversy. 
He liked twisting the meanings and purposes of products and design. 

No comments:

Post a Comment