Vibrant Colors and Eccentric Designs of the 1980s—The Iconic Memphis Group

Heard of the Memphis Group? This international group of designers and architects met in Milan, Italy, one day to develop a new design style. It quickly became a revolutionary global cultural phenomenon of the 1980s.

Formation

Founded by Ettore Sottsass and Barbara Radice in 1981, Memphis challenged the dominating Minimalist trend and the idea that design should above all be functional and useful. With the colorful and pop-art-like style objects, the group advocated a more sensorial and fun approach to design.

Name

How come a group of artists chooses a name Memphis for their collective-to-be? During the first meeting on December 1, 1980, when Sottsass in his sixties invited younger artists to bring their ideas and drawings for new objects for the following year’s Milan Furniture Fair, the Bob Dylan song entitled Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again was played repeatedly on the record player. Since the needle kept sticking on the last words of the title, it somehow naturally gave a name to the group.

Members

The collective was quickly joined by designers from all over the world like Masanori Umeda (Japan), Peter Shire (US), George J.Sowden (UK), Nathalie Du Pasquier (France), Martine Bedin (France), Gerard Taylor (UK), and many many others…

Opinions

Memphis design was often ridiculed and described as bizarre or “a shotgun wedding between Bauhaus and Fisher-Price”, and simply a fad. Even though the misunderstood style made the members of Memphis Group go separate ways just 6 years after the formation, the geometric and colorful style persisted and became widely accepted in the 1990s.

Despite the critique, the collective exhibited their characteristic super-sizing, fluorescent colors, exotic patterns and cheesy motifs, annually from 1981 to 1988.

The group produced everything: from glass vases to furniture, carpets, lighting, ceramics, fabrics, to metal objects.