seven years of post-modern revolt against modernist sobriety. plastic laminate furniture. clashing geometry. conscious kitsch. lost commercially. won culturally.
memphis was not a style. it was an argument against the idea that good design is restrained.
— the unofficial memphis position, 1981.
on the evening of 11 december 1980 a group of italian designers met in ettore sottsass's apartment on via san galdino in milano. they had spent the seventies designing for olivetti and zanussi and producing nothing they cared about. bob dylan's stuck inside of mobile with the memphis blues again was playing. they took the name from the song. the group was founded.
the first exhibition opened september 1981 at arc '74 gallery during the milan furniture fair. the press hated it. retailers refused to stock it. journalists called the carlton bookcase "a gravestone." it sold seventeen units in its entire commercial life. the show ran for years afterward in tokyo, paris, new york.
by 1988 sottsass had moved on to his own studio. the group dissolved. the laminate patterns went to the design schools, to the magazine covers, to swatch watches and esprit storefronts, and eventually — twenty years later, sanitized of its revolt — to every saas startup wanting to look fun.
the materials were the argument. plastic laminate (formica, abet) was a working-class kitchen surface. modernism treated it as base, inauthentic, low. memphis used it as the primary surface of furniture intended for the rich. the joke was sincere.
the patterns came from a few sources. bacterio (sottsass, 1978) — squiggle. schegge — terrazzo shards. polka — dot grids. these weren't decoration. they were arguments printed onto the laminate at the supplier and shipped to milano.
the founders: ettore sottsass, michele de lucchi, aldo cibic, andrea branzi, michael graves, hans hollein, arata isozaki, shiro kuramata, peter shire, george sowden, matteo thun, masanori umeda, marco zanini, nathalie du pasquier.
the founding meeting on december 11, 1980 was attended by sottsass, michele de lucchi, aldo cibic, matteo thun, marco zanini, and andrea branzi. the international roster joined over the following months: michael graves from princeton, hans hollein from vienna, arata isozaki from tokyo, shiro kuramata from tokyo, george sowden from leeds via london, peter shire from los angeles, masanori umeda from tokyo, javier mariscal from valencia, and nathalie du pasquier from bordeaux. nine cities. one apartment.
the first exhibition opened at arc '74 gallery in milano on september 18, 1981, during the milan furniture fair (the salone del mobile). it was funded by ernesto gismondi, the head of artemide lighting, who put up 30 million lire. the show featured fifty-five pieces. it was attended by the press, the critics, and a small audience that included karl lagerfeld, who bought a complete set of furniture and installed it in his monte carlo apartment.
by the second show in 1982 memphis had become a phenomenon. by the third in 1983 it was on the cover of domus, casabella, blueprint, and id. by 1986 it was on swatch watches and esprit storefronts. by 1988 it was over. sottsass quit. the group dissolved.
the work itself lives now in museums. the carlton bookcase is in moma's permanent collection. the casablanca sideboard is at the v&a. the bel air chair is at the centre pompidou. memphis-milano s.r.l. — the original commercial entity — still exists and produces small editions on order.
memphis milano s.r.l. — the commercial entity established in 1981 — still produces selected pieces on order. the patterns (bacterio, schegge, polka) are registered trademarks. the spirit is in the public domain.
apple.com is modernist sobriety incarnate. black bezel. white product. ultra-thin sans. centered headline. a single beautiful price. memphis would have hated it. memphis would also have wanted in.