The volume presents the series of objects and furnishings conceived and produced by Memphis design collective between 1981 and 1986. The group, under the leadership of Ettore Sottsass, intended to react to the minimal, functional and almost austere design that had characterised the industrial production of previous years, proposing a new language that mixed elegance and kitsch, thanks to the use of different materials, shapes asymmetrical and unexpected combinations. A project that, by contrasting the pleasure of decoration and play, with a narrow vision of functionalism, has quickly conquered the public and the press from all over the world and, while running out in five years, has marked a renewal in the world of design, not only in Milan but internationally.


Designers: Ettore Sottsass, Barbara Radice, Michele De Lucchi, Martine Bedin, George J. Sowden, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Aldo Cibic, Matteo Thun, Marco Zanini, Andrea Branzi, Michael Graves, Hans Hollein, Shiro Kuramata, Peter Shire, Masanori Umeda, Arata Isozaki, Terry Jones, Javier Mariscal, Arquitectonica, Gerard Taylor, Bruno Gregori di Studio Alchymia, Robert Mangurian, Paola Navone, Daniela Puppa, Maria Sanchez, Luigi Serafini, Thomas Bley, Rudi Haberl, Walter Kirpicsenko, Michael Podgorschek, Christoph Radl.


Text in English and Italian.