Today Memphis Design is the stuff of museum retrospectives and a source of inspiration for modern-day designers.
Studio Azzurro /Memphis, Milano/Vitra Design Museum
What Is Memphis Design?
Sottsass came out of the Radical Design and anti-design movements in Italy starting in the 1960s.
Zanone/Wikimedia Commons
Some found Memphis Design delightful.
Others found it garish.
One critic memorably described it as a shotgun wedding between Bauhaus and Fisher-Price.
The Memphis team posing on bed Masanori by Umeda Tawaraya, 1981Studio Azzurro /Memphis, Milano/Vitra Design Museum
Celebrity 1980s superfans of the design style included legendary fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld and David Bowie.
But this influential movement was short-lived, disbanding in 1988.
Phiwath Jittamas / Getty Images
Why is it called Memphis Design?
Peter Shire, armchair Bel-Air, 1982Jürgen Hans /Vitra Design Museum
Is Memphis Design Style Making a Comeback?
The most famous Memphis Design item is theCarltonroom divider or bookcase.
Why did Memphis Design end?
Modern concept for Memphis Design-inspired room.Phiwath Jittamas / Getty Images
Memphis Design was never everybodys cup of tea.
What is unique about Memphis Design?
Lee, Thomas.Too Much Fun: Contemporary Aesthetic Theory and Design.Design and Culture,vol.
Sottsass Associati, Interior for an exhibition on Italian Design in Tokyo, 1984Marirosa Ballo / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021 /Vitra Design Museum
1-15, 2017. doi:10.1080/17547075.2017.1370669
Ettore Sottsoss.The Design Museum.
