ALCHIMIA
Italienisches Design der Gegenwart
[Contemporary Italian Design]
Kazuko Sato, Alessandro Mendini [introduction]
Kazuko Sato, Alessandro Mendini [introduction]: ALCHIMIA: Italienisches Design der Gegenwart [Contemporary Italian Design]. Berlin: Taco, 1988. Text in German and English. A nearly fine oversized softcover book in thick, printed french-folded wrappers.trivial wear overall Interior unmarked and clean. Out-of-print.
9 x 12 softcover book with 214 pages and 390 color and black and white images. Introduction by Alessandro Mendini. The book explains Studio Alchimia's philosophy, furniture, interior and architectural design. The group's manifesto stresses its believe that an object's 'beauty' lies in the love and magic of its designer's commitment and in its soul.
In Italy, the Studio Alchimia created experimental design that used irony to break down rigid, austere Bauhaus principles. In 1980, the Italian architect and industrial designer Ettore Sottsass formed a loose association of architects and designers, whose witty furniture explodes with radical new concepts of color, form, and pattern.
From the Modern Design Dictionary: "Founded by Alessandro and Adriana Guerriero and Bruno and Giorgio Gregori in 1976, this Milan-based avant-garde experimental design group worked outside the constraints of mass production and the dictates of manufacturers . . . The pivotal figures of the group were Alessandro Mendini and Ettore Sottsass Jr., both of whom were opposed to the dogma of elegance and 'good taste' so evident in much mainstream Italian design of the 1950s and 1960s . . . The group's exhibitions included Bauhaus I and Bauhaus II, the latter shown at the Milan Triennale of 1979, and The Banal Object exhibited at the Venice Biennale of 1980. The Bauhaus exhibitions included commonplace motifs drawn from the 1950s, drawing together strands of design, culture, and everyday life in the belief that the ordinary can provide the impetus for creativity. The Banal Object comprised a collection of everyday products such as irons, carpet sweepers, lights, and shoes, the banality of which was accentuated by the addition of dramatic decorative features. Mendini was commited to the idea of design as expressing a polemical or didactic position rather than providing a set of propositions for the reinvigoration of design as a positive instrument of social and cultural change. It was this latter outlook that was to be taken up by Memphis for much of the 1980s."