Alessandro MENDINI

Alessandro Mendini (1931 - 2019) was an Italian designer, architect, editor and essayist who played an important role in the development of Italian design during the second part of the twentieth century. In addition to his artistic career, he has worked and written for the magazines Casabella, Modo and Domus. In 1970 he was one of the main personalities of the Radical Design movement and in 1979 he became a partner of Studio Alchimia, where he collaborated with Ettore Sottsass and Michele De Lucchi. Mendini graduated in architecture from the Milan Polytechnic in 1959 and worked from 1956 to 1970 as a partner of the architect Marcello Nizzoli at his industrial design studio Nizzoli Associati. In 1973 he co-founded the architecture and urban planning firm Radical Design Group. But Mendini soon discovered his true passion for writing and, in 1970, he began his career as a publisher; first as editor-in-chief of the magazine Casabella from 1970 to 1976. In 1977 he then founded his own magazine, Modo, where he held the role of editor-in-chief until 198o, when he became editor-in-chief of the magazine Domus until 1985. In 1988 Mendini founded his second magazine, Ollo, where he was director until his death. Alessandro Mendini changed the panorama of modern design through his works of postmodernism par excellence. Through his involvement with Studio Alchimia, Mendini guided the concept of Banal Design, exploring an assertively kitschy and whimsical style as an effective way to break the notions of value, function, taste and style to encourage individual thinking. Just as works from other eras express the human values and sensitivity of their corresponding eras, Mendini's work has helped to bring into the heart of design those "values" and "sensibilities" that have been eclipsed by commercialism and functionalism. /