Alessandro Mendini

Alessandro Mendini is an Italian designer, painter, architect and journalist born in Milan in the year 1931. He worked for Domus, Casabella and Modo. He made part of the Radical Design/Anti Design movement and joined one of the Radical groups; Studio Alchimia. Also worked with Ettore Sottsass and Michele De Lucchi. 

He was known around a lot of countries as he designed several buildings such as: 
Omegna, Alessi's residence 
Teatrino Della Bicchieraia, theater complex
The forum museum of Omegna in Italy
Memorial Tower in Hiroshima and many others.


One of his designs was the 'Lassu' chair produced in 1974. Mendini put two chairs and burned them both named 'Lassu' to give them that Dadaist treatment, burnt. He did this process in front of the offices of Casabella (magazine). The materials he used was colored wood. 

Shown below is one of the chairs that remained stable while the other one which was almost burned completely, the remains are in the archives of the University of Parma. The texture of the burned wood on the chair was symbolizing life and death 

Alessandro Mendin - Lassu - 1974

Another product which he produced was the 'Proust' chair.

This chair on the other hand is more colorful with painted wood material. It was one of the most popular chair in the time of the 80's. With this chair, Mendini produced several designs known as 'redesigns' in which he redesigned their shape and embellishment previous existing chairs which were popular at their time. The chair was covered in colorful dots which were inspired from a painting done by Paul Signac, pointilism. It was inspired by Impressionism and the Baroque Style. 

Alessandro Mendin - Proust Chair - 1978

Some other designs produced by Mendini: 

- Zig zag Chair - 1978: Re-designed from Gerrit Rietveld's design 

And then there is the 'Thonet' chair produced in 1978. Mendini wanted to interpret science and technology. 

Reference:

- RoGallery, 2013, 'Alessandro Mendini - Italian' [ONLINE] Available at: http://rogallery.com/Mendini_Alessandro/mendini-biography.html [Accessed at: 24 January 2014]

- Vitra Design Museum, 2014,  'Lassu - Alessandro Mendini' [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.design-museum.de/en/collection/100-masterpieces/detailseiten/100-lassu-alessandro-mendini.html [Accessed at 24 January 2014] 

- Vitra Design Museum, 2014, 'Poltrona di Proust - Alessandro Mendini' [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.design-museum.de/en/collection/100-masterpieces/detailseiten/poltrona-di-proust-alessandro-mendini.html [Accessed at 24 January 2014]