Memphis Design Group and Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sottsass is a product of the upheavals and realities of this century. His national and geographical origins were determined by the changes wrought in World War I and the direction of his career as a designer was defined by the economic and political legacy of World War II. He moved to America in the 1950s, seeing in it the contemporary mecca of industrial and consumer production and progress. In the 1960s, Sottsass went to India along with much of the counter-culture and was closely associated with Pop Art and the Beat Generation. In the 1970s he was a leading figure in t

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them physical form had become a major issue, an obsession based on their creative capacity. They were also infused with an almost reckless desire to strike a blow against the current circumstances: One began to wonder if it was really necessary to continue to sink into beige leather sofas, surrounded by fixture-walls with sharp-cornered orthogonal planes in shiny polyester, or to march up and down steps and floors covered by eternal monochromatic carpets, acid structures in steel and sheet-metal, drinks and hors d'oeuvres lined up on severe coffee-tables, possibly in chrome and glass (Radice 23). Much of the impetus for the style of design that would become Memphis came from a dissatisfaction with Modern Design, then the prevailing form. Sottsass had explored traditions outside of Modernism, including Eastern and Third World traditions, the Pop style of suburbia, and the Arts-and-Crafts inspired European decorative designs of the early twentieth century (Horn 16-17). The first Memphis collection came out in the fall of 1981 during the Milan Furniture Fair. forty designs were shown. they were not mass-produced or stocked, and many were simply prototypes, often partly handcrafted for Memphis by various manufacturers in tra
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Approximate Word count = 1877
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)