With a distinctive career spanning more than forty years in design, architecture, and art, Alessandro Mendini is one of Italy’s most prominent architects, designers, and critics. His work ranges from creation of objects, furnishings, interiors, paintings and installations to architecture, and also includes significant theoretical work.
“Alessandro Mendini’s work is categorically contemporary, characterized by bright colors and non-traditional shapes as an exploration of how one discipline can be affected by another, ” writes Chris Danforth, for Highscnobriety.
“Much of Mendini’s artistic approach attempts to inject new meaning or new perspective into everyday objects such as furniture or homewares, a method that the Italian artist refers to as “re-design”, which was a notable departure from classic Italian styles at the time. Mendini is often attributed with helping reform the Italian art, design and architecture movements in the 1980s. ”
Born in 1931, Alessandro graduated from the Milan Polytechnic school in 1959, before playing an integral role with design publications including Casabella (1970-76), Modo (1977-81) and Domus (1979-85). Many awards, lofty appointments and decorations later, today Mendini operates a firm aptly named Atelier Mendini alongside his brother Francesco.
Alessandro’s distinctive, Italian-made armchairs perhaps best exemplify his approach to design, taking an existing product and recontextualizing it into something poignantly modern.
Other notable works extend into urban planning and large-scale architectural projects, not limited to an aquatic sports centre with an Olympic pool in Trieste; the restoration of City Hall and construction of three metro stations in Naples; Byblos Art Hotel-Villa Amistà in Verona; the Paradise Tower in Hiroshima, Japan; and the Groningen Museum in the Netherlands.