Anti Design

Anti Design

Anti Design is also known as Radical design. In the 1960s a flourishing number of avant-garde designers had started to rebel against the formal and elegance of modernism. Radical designers started to form in separate groups, such as Archizoom and Superstudio, which both were founded in Florence in 1966. These groups became the source of design, by building prototypes and organizing installations, while hosting events that showcased their concerns for the entire enviroment rather then the particular object.

By the following half of the decade, Ettore Sottsass held an exhibition of furniture in Milan, in 1966. Radical and Anti design had become a very important force in the world of design. Anti design rejected the formal values of the Italian neomodernism, and wanted to renew the political and cultural aspect of design, keeping in mind the original goals of modernism which had at that time, developed in a cheap marketing tool. In comparision, people who supported anti design wanted to sabotage "good taste" and exclusive esthetic values of modernism by applying all the design features it so angrily rejected. This movement supported briefness, irony, kitsch, strong colours and distortions of proportion to weaken thhe purely functional value of a product.

Alessandro Mendini was the cheif spokesman which led the Milan-based Studio Alchimia, which was founded in 1976. Their aim was to advertise the change of everyday consumer goods into products of esthetic reflection. Ettore Sottsass Jr. was also part of this group and also; Paola Navone, Andrea Branzi and Michele de Lucchi. With Sottsass leading the group, individual activities were being carried out in singular groups, but that was till the Memphis collective was founded in the early 1980s.  As the Memphis group started to develop in Italy, the anti design, with its slogan saying "liberation of decoration for its own sake," grew into an internationally known style known as post modernism.

Panton Chair by Verner Panton

Vico Magistretti

References

Bhaskaran, L. (2005). Designs of the times. Mies: RotoVision.

Technology and Mid-Century Furniture Design in NYC for Fine Furniture Design | MOD Restoration. 2015. Technology and Mid-Century Furniture Design in NYC for Fine Furniture Design | MOD Restoration. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.modrestoration.com/technology-and-mid-century-furniture-design. [Accessed 31 January 2015].

Arm Chair. Joe Colombo. Kartell. | Maestros del diseño | Pinterest. 2015.Arm Chair. Joe Colombo. Kartell. | Maestros del diseño | Pinterest. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/985231143505350/. [Accessed 31 January 2015].

Anti Design. 2015. Anti Design. [ONLINE] Available at:http://antidesignn.blogspot.com/. [Accessed 31 January 2015].