The Memphis Group

The Memphis group was founded by veteran Ettore Sottsass. It was an Italian group of young  furniture and product designers that dominated the beginning of the 1980's. It had a post-modern style.
The main aim of this group was to create original and interesting designs that had no rules regarding the built, shape and colour of the final product. 
The group experimented with unconventional  materials, historic forms, colours, styles, decorations ans kitsch motifs . They were mainly inspired from Art Deco and Pop Art. Their designs lacked functionality, but they broke down the barrier between the high and low classes of design. 

Dublin sofa, 1981
Design: Marco Zanini

Some of their furniture and light designs were revolutionary at the time, they were made out of industrial materials such as printed glass, fire-flake finishes, neon tubes, zinc-plated sheet-metals that were painted in flamboyant colours and patterns, spangles and glitter. As Sottsass liked to say, "Memphis is not new, Memphis is everywhere." 

This is the Beverly Cabinet designed in 1981 by Ettore Sottsass. It had a snakeskin effect laminate doors in green and yellow with brown tortoiseshell-inspired book shelves positioned at a particular angle, and a bright red bulb. 

Oberoi armchairs designed in 1981 bu Sowden. They had a combination of a tomato-red upholstery with bright yellow, or blue legs with Natalie du Pasquier’s 1950's chubby pink and black mosaic print.

Super Lamp designed in 1977 by Martine Bedin was among the first contributions to Memphis. This version of the lamp is the initial prototype that was first shown at Memphis exhibition in 1981. It was made out of painted steel mounted with lighting components. 

The Carlton cabinet, designed in 1981 by Ettore Sottsass is an iconic and one of the most outspoken pieces ever designed in the Memphis Group collection. It was made out of laminated wood and plastic.Its colourful, happy colours were inspired from Sottsass' trip to India.

Not everyone was in agreement to the Memphis Group in the design world. Vico Magistretti once said that "This furniture offers no possibility of development whatsoever, it is only a variant of fashion." The co-founder of the IDEO industrial design group Bill Moggridge claimed that "You were either for it, or against it. "All the boring old designers hated it. The rest of us loved it."

Although the Memphis group did not last long, the work of the various designers in the collection remained important and challenged the traditional modern-making furniture and has been an inspiration even to this day.This moving-panels bookshelf reminds me a lot of Sottsass' Carlton Bookshelf.

Admin. (/). MEMPHIS Product + Furniture Designers (1981-1985) Design Museum Collection. Available: http://designmuseum.org/design/memphis. Last accessed 26th december 2013.