10 iconic furniture from David Bowie’s private Memphis collection
Barna Máté Attila MOME - Formatervezés MA 1 Bútortervezés 2016 Ősz Témavezető: Berta Barna
The Memphis Group The Memphis group comprised of Italian designers and architects who created a series of highly influential products in the 1980’s. They disagreed with the conformist approach at the time and challenged the idea that products had to follow conventional shapes, colours, textures and patterns. The Memphis group was founded in 1981. One of the leading members of the group Ettore Sottsass called Memphis design the ‘New International Style’. Memphis was a reaction against the slick, black humorless design of the 1970’s. It was a time of minimalism with such products as typewriters, buildings, cameras, cars and furniture all seeming to lack personality and individualism. In contrast the Memphis Group offered bright, colourful, shocking pieces. The colours they used contrasted the dark blacks and browns of European furniture. It may look dated today but at the time it looked remarkable. The word tasteful is not normally associated with products generated by the Memphis Group but they were certainly ground breaking at the time.
David Bowie David Bowie was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, regarded by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influencing popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million worldwide, made him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. He was also an avid collector of works by Italian designer Ettore Sottsass and the MilanBased Memphis group. Over the years, he had managed to acquire over 100 pieces, including the iconic Super Lamp by Martine Bedin and Sottsass’ Carlton bookcase. After his death in January 2016, Bowie’s personal collection of Memphis furniture went up for auction on 11 November 2016 at Sotheby’s on New Bond Street, London.
Ettore Sottsass Ettore Sottsass was a pivotal figure of the late 20th century Italian design scene. Best known as the founder of the early 1980s Memphis collective, he also designed iconic products for Olivetti, as well as glass and ceramics. With Memphis, Sottsass wanted to define a new approach to design that broke free of the restrictions of functionalism. The products created by the Memphis group included limited production creations of unusual objects and functional designs. Most products featured plastic laminate surfaces, bright colours and bold patterns. “When I was young, all we ever heard about was functionalism, functionalism, functionalism” Sottsass once said. “It’s not enough. Design should also be sensual and exciting.”
Tartar Designer: Ettore Sottsass Jr. Design: 1985 Production: Memphis, Milan Size: 195x85x78 cm Material: Laminated wood
Tartar was one of Ettore Sottsas’ last furniture dedicated to The Memphis Group. The group finally disbanded in 1988, after Sottsass abandoned ship in 1985 to concentrate on his architecture studio Sottsass Associati, but a resurgence in interest for the movement’s philosophy and resulting aesthetic has crept back into furniture and homeware design in recent years.
Casablanca Designer: Ettore Sottsass Jr. Design: 1981 Production: Memphis, Milan Size: 230 x 161.5 x 35 cm Material: wood, laminated plastic
Its garish colour, pattern and strange winged shape went against the Modernist belief that form should follow function. The brash decoration, which opposed the purity of much undecorated minimalist furniture designed in the 1970s, was inspired by the everyday products of the 1950s. American ‘diner’ interiors and the wipe-clean furniture of the kitchenette influenced the use of laminated plastic. Although the patterns and materials of Memphis designs were drawn from popular taste, the furniture was too expensive for the average customer. However, by drawing on so-called ‘low taste’, the Memphis group introduced a new spirit of fun and fantasy into design.
Carlton Ettore Sottsass Jr. Design: 1981 Manufacturer: Memphis, Milan Size: 195.5 x 190 x 40 cms Material: wood, laminated plastic
The totemic Carlton, which Sottsass created in 1981, is his most identifiable furniture design. It reads as a bookcase, a room divider and a dresser, depending on who you ask. Its form is ambiguous enough to question, at first glance, whether it’s a piece of furniture at all.When the Milan design group Memphis gave the first public presentation of their work in September 1981, the Ettore Sottsass room divider “Carlton” was among the most noted pieces. “Carlton” symbolizes essential traits of the style which as a consequence of Memphis became known almost overnight as New Design. Mundane and depthless laminated materials are trademarks of Memphis. Their aseptic, bold superficiality makes them the ideal medium for a new, decorative aesthetic. The iconography of the patterns is the result of blending graphic or geometric structures, imitation marble or wood, African symbols, comic strips, and loud colors.
Adesso Pero Designer: Ettore Sottsass Jr. Design: 1992 Production: Design Gallery Milano, Milan Size: 210x160x50 Material: wood, glass
desso Pero is actually Ettore Sotsass’ Post-Memphis work. It is part of the “Ruin” A collection. The designer himself describes this collections with the following sentence: “I called this exhibition “Ruins” because at the moment more than ever the word “Ruins” seems to explain just how I feel.” Sottsass was known for his playfulness and wit as well as his whimsical ornamentation. His Adesso Pero stained-wood bookshelf from 1992 looks like three red lightning bolts shooting into a red platform
Michele De Lucchi
Michele De Lucchi was born in 1951 in Ferrara and graduated in architecture in Florence. During the period of radical and experimental architecture he was a prominent figure in movements like Cavart, Alchymia and Memphis. De Lucchi has designed furniture for the most known Italian and European companies. For Olivetti he has been Director of Design from 1992 to 2002 and he developed experimental projects for Compaq Computers, Philips, Siemens and Vitra. His professional work has always gone side-by-side with a personal exploration of architecture, design, technology and crafts. In 1990 he founded Produzione Privata, a small-scale production and retail company through which Michele De Lucchi designed products that are made using dedicated artisans and craft techniques. From 2004 he has been using a chain saw to sculpt small wooden houses which create the essentiality of his architectural style. In 2003 the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris has acquired a considerable number of his works. Selections of his products are exhibited in the most important design Museums in Europe, United States and Japan.
First Chair Designer: Michele De Lucchi Design: 1983 Production: Memphis, Milan Size: 90 x 66 x 46 cm Material: varnished tubular steel, varnished wood, rubber
“First” by Michele de Lucchi was one of the few designs intended for the broad public, and quickly became a bestseller. The back and armrest construction is a true eyecatcher. It consists of a steel tube, bent to form a circle, which supports a flexible backrest comprising a round wooden disk on rubber bearings and two wooden spheres as armrests. The tube is welded to the front legs of the simple stool, which forms the seat frame, almost completely engulfing the sitter. Although the construction is extremely stable, the reduced elements radiate a strong impression of lightness. The restrained use of decorative elements gives “First” an almost classic air among the Memphis objects, making it suitable for furnishing conventional interiors.
Kristall Table Designer: Michele De Lucchi Design: 1981 Production: Memphis, Milan Size: 50x63x65 cm Material: Plastic laminate, lascuered wood and metal
From the inaugural 1981 Memphis collection, this is a very popular and collectible design by Michele De Lucchi. The laminate pattern on the base of the table is named “Terrific� and was also designed by De Lucchi. This table is meant to be an interpretation of the Apollo XI Space mission and in the end it looks somewhat like a lunar lander.
Peter Shire
Peter Shire was born in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles, where he currently lives and works. His sculpture, furniture and ceramics have been exhibited in the United States, Italy, France, Japan and Poland; Shire has been associated with the Memphis Group of designers, has worked on the Design Team for the XXIII Olympiad with the American Institute of Architects, and has designed public sculptures in Los Angeles and other California cities. Shire has been honored by awards for his contribution to the cultural life of the City of Los Angeles.
Big Sur Designer: Peter Shire Design: 1986 Production: Memphis, Milan Size:210x72x96 Material: lacquered wood, coloured cotton fabric
Embracing a deliberately Postmodernist ethos, Shire’s ‘Big Sur’ summons the rudimentary motifs of geometry - the circle, the square and the rectangle - to be realigned as a composition that consciously disturbs any suggestion of order.
Bel Air Designer: Peter Shire Design: 1982 Production: Memphis, Milan Size:1 28x123x108 Material: Painted wood, coloured cotton fabric
The iconic ‘Bel Air’ chair was the most important contribution of the Californian designer and ceramist Peter Shire to the Italian design group Memphis and became a signature object for the collective. It was used on the cover of the most widely distributed book on the group (authored by Barbara Radice); and - in a cartoon version - as the ‘poster object’ for the first American museum exhibition about the group: ‘Memphis in Memphis’ (Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Tennessee, 1984/85). While it fit into the Memphis aesthetic, the design is pure west coast. Shire’s style was influenced by the Los Angeles culture of surfing and hot rodding, as well as Art Deco and 1950s Space Age architecture in Southern California and the state’s mass culture. The chair’s asymmetrical back is based partly on shark fins and partly on the Stevens House by architect John Lautner, located on the beach in Malibu.