Ettore Sottsass, Libreria “Carlton”, Memphis 1981
event
Saturday 19 November 2016 ore 11:30 - 13:00

The Histories of Design.The Seventies and Eighties: the Alchimia and Memphis experience. With Alessandro Mendini

Curated by Domitilla Dardi
MAXXI Auditorium – single ticket €5.00 – carnet five seminars €20.00 – free for myMAXXI cardholders and students of art and architecture eligible for educational credits.
Purchase of a ticket entitles the holder to reduced price museum entrance within a week of issue.

Five seminars introducing the protagonists, the ideas and the projects that have transformed Italian design in recent years

In this series of seminars the protagonists of diverse seasons of design or historians and experts in the subject explore the issues paying particular attention to the Italian situation within the broader international debate made up of collaborations and joint ventures, through diverse materials and types of design: from furnishing to car design, from technological products to food design, from graphics to brand identity.

The early Seventies saw the birth of two apparently contrasting phenomena: Aldo Rossi’s Tendenza and the Radical Movement. Tendenza with a clear return to the Utopia of Classicism and the Radicals with the Arcadian and anti-academic Utopia of a return to craft values. In the fourth seminar we shall be exploring how the context of that period was made up of crucial events that marked a profound transformation of the world: the man on the moon, the assassination of Aldo Moro, the Living Theatre, the Sony Walkman from 1979, Calvino’s Città Invisibili, and Umberto Eco’s Il Nome della Rosa.

Alessandro Mendini has edited the magazines CasabellaModo and Domus. ÈHe was the founder of the Alchimia studio characterised by a calligraphic, colouristic, symbolic, romantic and problematic approach to design. He won three Compasso d’oro awards (1979 – 1981 – 2014) and is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in France.

The Histories of Design Project has been produced thanks to the support of MINI, MAXXI Public Programs Partner