Memphis

Furniture resembling sculpture, shelving like totem poles, misshapen chair legs, an explosion of vivid colours, strange combinations of materials - in the seven years that the group existed, the work of Memphis, founded in Milan in 1981, upset every rule of functionalism and of modern ‘good taste’. United around Ettore Sottsass, the ‘intellectual of counter-culture’, the members of Memphis - young, international creative artists, architects, designers and graphic designers - put forward a new vision of furniture and objects for everybody, composed of elements that were more emotional than functional, more artistic than commercial. In words and lavish colour illustrations, this is a tribute to the originality, humour and dazzling invention of the Memphis design grou.