Giorgio Birelli, Carlo Caldini, Fabrizio Fiumi, and Paolo Galli established Gruppo 9999, a group of avant-garde architects, in Florence in 1968. They were eventually joined by Paolo Coggiola, Andrea Gigli, Mario Preti, and Giovanni Sani. The operation lasted until 1972. (Byars, 2004)
On Florence’s Ponte Vecchio, its members organised a “design happening” in 1968. Another of its projects was the interior design for the 1969 Space Electronics discotheque, Florence. At the large dance hall that the organisation ran in Florence, the group organised the seminar “S-S-Space World Festival no. 1” on conceptual and behavioural architecture, which was attended by Italian and foreign participants. In 1973, it released the book Memories of Architecture.
The 9999 Group condemned the misuse of the mass media and the false goals of the economic-political run-up, attentive only to the logic of the market and consumption, promoting an ecological movement where each of their design activities contained an ethical message. They launched a manifesto that, in addition, highlighted the group’s philosophy, and aimed to outline a specific life model and spread it.
The fiercely anti-consumption stances adopted by Gruppo 9999 made it difficult, however, for them to incorporate their ideas into mass production, and they relied on the communication channels of exhibitions and specialist magazines through which to disseminate their ideas. (Sparke, 1986)
Sources
Sparke, P. (1986, May 1). An Introduction to Design and Culture in the Twentieth Century (4th ed., pp. 1–316). Routledge. https://amzn.to/3SOpUpc
You may also be interested in
Superstudio (1966 – 1978) Italian avant-garde design group
Superstudio was an avant-garde architectural and design group that was closely linked to the Radical Design movement in Italy. Founded by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia in Florence in December 1966. Its members rejected the traditional relationship between the designer and the manufacturer, which meant that the former was subject to the latter’s dictates and thus constrained.
Group of Ten (est. 1970) design collective promoting creative individuality
The Group of Ten (Tio-Gruppen) was established in 1970. Gunila Axén, BrittMarie Christofferson, Carl Johan De Geer, Susanne Grundell, Lotta Hagerman, Birgitta Hahn, Ingela Hakansson, Tom Hedqvist, Tage Müler, and Inez Svensson established the TIO Gruppen a Swedish design collective, which mirrored a renaissance of interest in handicrafts.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.