Alessandro Mendini

Architect, writer, and painter born in Milan in 1931, Mendini is a much discussed and followed leading character in his field. He confronts projects with an interest that ranges from radical Utopian to commonplace design.

He won the Compasso d'Oro Award (Gold Compass) for design. A leading light of current postmodern and contemporary, his design is not aggressive, but of soft architectural shapes, almost feminine. He loves a project that favors emotion.

"I am interested in the house as a kind place, where more emotion and introversion come out, with objects that stimulate slowness, ritual, and mythology. The world is violent, the house has to be protective".

He uses provocative slogans such as: "sentimental robot", "hermaphrodite architecture", "universal cosmetology", "informed craftsmanship", "pictorial design".

Under the conception of Mendini, furniture is architecture, each piece a unique object of art, a theoretical plan.

He has rediscovered the expressive value of decoration and has made that the foundation for the development of his pictorial designs. Fabrics, tapestries, and rugs participate in his design.

"Art or design is not the message, but the means by which to reawaken the conscience". This position is closer to art than to design.

He has been editor of the magazines Casabella, Modo, and Domus, opening them to the artistic neo-avante garde. He has published books such as: Paesaggio Casalingo (Domestic Landscape), Addio Architettura (Farewell Architecture), and Progetto Infelice (Unsuccessful Plan). In 1979 he founded Studio Alchymia, a cultural movement which bursts with a reassuring standard of design. Of this movement, monographs in various languages exist.

The fruits of his truly "volcanic activity", are shown in various museums and international collections. There are works by him in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and other museums. Among his architectural projects are: the Teatro di Arezzo (1989), the civic tower at Gibellina in Sicily, a tower in Hiroshima Tower, and the Groningen Museum in Holland.