Today’s choice of a design influence might raise a few eyebrows. Glancing at the photos, it’s hard to hide the bright (almost garish) colors and strange shapes. Make no mistake, the Memphis Design Group was not only a surprising and important influence of design in the 1980s, its ideas, though subtle, have lasted until today.
The Memphis style of design is probably the most recognizable style, if only for its uniqueness. Probably the most jarring characteristic of the Memphis style of design is its use of bright colors and patterns. Featuring lots of teals, bright blues, purples, reds, greens and yellows along with signature black and grays, the colors were applied to furniture items in such a way that it really emphasized the shape of the pieces. Patterns that are undeniably 1980s, like zigzags, triangles and more, took residence on furniture planes. The shapes of the pieces were exuberant: pieces featured sharp angles and interesting curves.
Helmed by the great Ettore Sottass, the Italian movement began as a way to oppose the dark blacks and browns found in popular European furniture at the time. The movement was made up of other famous architects and designers who were all working in Milan at the time, like George Sowden, Michele de Lucchi, Marco Zanini, Aldo Cibic, Matheo Thun, Nathalie du Pasquier and Martine Bedin. Begun in 1980, the group created exhibits that ran annually from 1981 to 1988. Though these exhibits dealt with furniture and decorative accessories that featured crazy colors and shapes, this movement wasn’t outlandish or superficial. Sottass and his designers didn’t care for the way that furniture design was approached at the time—the Memphis movement and all of their unconventional shapes, patterns and colors were a way to try and develop a new creative approach to design.
The Memphis style of design is probably the most recognizable style, if only for its uniqueness. Probably the most jarring characteristic of the Memphis style of design is its use of bright colors and patterns. Featuring lots of teals, bright blues, purples, reds, greens and yellows along with signature black and grays, the colors were applied to furniture items in such a way that it really emphasized the shape of the pieces. Patterns that are undeniably 1980s, like zigzags, triangles and more, took residence on furniture planes. The shapes of the pieces were exuberant: pieces featured sharp angles and interesting curves.
Helmed by the great Ettore Sottass, the Italian movement began as a way to oppose the dark blacks and browns found in popular European furniture at the time. The movement was made up of other famous architects and designers who were all working in Milan at the time, like George Sowden, Michele de Lucchi, Marco Zanini, Aldo Cibic, Matheo Thun, Nathalie du Pasquier and Martine Bedin. Begun in 1980, the group created exhibits that ran annually from 1981 to 1988. Though these exhibits dealt with furniture and decorative accessories that featured crazy colors and shapes, this movement wasn’t outlandish or superficial. Sottass and his designers didn’t care for the way that furniture design was approached at the time—the Memphis movement and all of their unconventional shapes, patterns and colors were a way to try and develop a new creative approach to design.
While the Memphis group didn’t last long, and the pieces have proven a bit too trendy to ever really catch on as a sustainable style, the work that this design collective did remains important in that they challenged the traditional conventions of modern furniture making. This challenging of the traditional approaches to design may very well have led the way to other such unconventional furniture designs, movements and styles of recent years.
