Memphis Group – It has Little to do with Tennessee

This rebellious attitude was also seen in their working style—more like a group of friends riffing off each other’s ideas than a formal design collective.

The Memphis movement burst onto the interior design scene at the annual Milan Furniture Fair 1981. It consisted of a group led by Memphis doyen Ettore Sottsass of avant-garde Italian designers. With outrageous interpretations of traditional furnishings and accessories, Memphis shocked the traditionally quiet industry. They also grabbed all the press coverage and turned the interior design community on its head.

The Aesthetic: From Chairs to Coffee Tables

Memphis Design was a metal chair with a green seat, black legs and yellow arms, or a sofa with a round orange cushion and a square cherry cushion. On a regal tabletop on regal turquoise fibreglass ‘monument’ feet, it could be a thick, round, marble coffee table top.

Playful Accessories

In accessories, it could be a funnel-shaped red and white cup that sits whimsically on a “matching” square saucer or a gravel-patterned red, white and black kitchen canister set with jagged tops.

It is a playful, asymmetrical, irreverent, colourful and sometimes downright bizarre approach to furniture, lamp vases, clocks, kitchen products and other household items.

The Mystery of the Name

The Memphis Design Group was named after the Bob Dylan song Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again. The group was listening to this song during their inaugural meeting in Milan in 1980. The name “Memphis” resonated with the members due to its layered references, including the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis and the vibrant music culture of Memphis, Tennessee. This eclectic mix of associations reflected the group’s ethos of blending historical, cultural, and avant-garde inspirations .

Key Figures in the Memphis Design Movement

Ettore Sottsass is usually regarded as the movement’s reigning intellect. Marco Zanini, Daniel Weil, Shiro Kuamata, George Snowden, Michele De Lucchi, Aldo Cibic, Nathalie du Pasquier, Andrea Branzi and Javier Mariscal were among the other designers associated with the movement.

The popular response to the movement during the ’80s was mixed. People loved it, hated it, or found that it was growing on them.

Impact on Furniture Design

In the design movement, people considered Memphis a real turning point. After its introduction, people viewed Memphis furniture differently. Like art, the furniture now offered intellectual stimulation. Critics often labelled it as a supplier of works with dubious taste. However, many saw it as a highly desirable expression of modern culture.

Memphis Design Movement is above the shock stage and gives itself a modicum of respectability. It became an integral part of the European style, a catch-all phrase that blended Bauhaus, Art Deco, neoclassicism and Memphis with contemporary design. It can still be considered bold and exciting, though.

Designers refer to this as a rippling effect. It meant rich, pink burl for Memphis instead of laminate on a Misura Emme dinner table or a combination of rare briarwood and plastic laminates on a sophisticated coffee table designed by Sottsass.

Nathalie Du Pasquier and George Sowden’s lamps look like, albeit futuristic, lamps.

There is evidence of restrained patterns, lively colours, bold patterns, and a punk balance. Memphis has become gorgeous.

MORE THAN The Memphis design movement, however, means freedom from anything else. Freedom uses colour and a great deal of it. Freedom to put in the same room an antique Chippendale wardrobe and a numberless ARTime wall clock. And liberty to find humour and style in the most useful objects of life.

Sources

Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing.

Bingham, C. (2019). More is More: Memphis, Maximalism, and New Wave Design. Czechia: teNeues. https://amzn.to/4gWLyEe

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