Postmodernism

Yuichiro Noguchi
Sep 21
4 min read

Updated: Sep 28

Memphis Milano is a multinational group of designers formed in 1981 and influenced design and architecture around the world, mainly in Italy, in the early 1980s. It also dominates the world as a representative of postmodern design. The central figure of the group is Italian architect and industrial designer Ettre Sotsas.

The night of December 11, 1980. Young designers and architects gathered in the living room of Ettre Sotsas, and "Memphis" was born. The name Memphis is borrowed from Bob Dylan's song "Stuck Inside of Mobile with Memphis Blues Again", which was one of Ettre Sottsas's favorite songs. What I did. The collections announced a few days later were Ettere Sottsas, Aldo Thibic, Matteo Tun, Marco Zanini, Martine Bedin, Michele de Lucchi, Natalie du Pasquier, and George So It takes several months to shape by Uden's drawing.

At the first exhibition at the Milan Salone in September 1981, he presented a design that was very different from the modernist style that emphasized functionality and rationality that was the mainstream at the time. Colorful and original works that break preconceived notions are highly appreciated and shock the world. Memphis had a design that was the exact opposite of the style that emphasized functionality and rationality that was mainstream at the time, and there were many colorful and complex sculptural expressions that had an impact on appearance. It was not a commercial success because it was a stance of making what you want to make without restrictions from clients, but it had a great impact not only on the architectural interior industry but also on the fashion industry.

Memphis's design aims to have not only functionality but also symbolic, poetic and emotional values, and the fusion of pop and classicism, high-culture popular culture, forming an aesthetic between kitch and elegance. Aiming to merge art and craft, we emphasize emotional design and explore the potential of design beyond marketing. As a result, we will continue to produce products with high emotional value and gain high reputation in the world.

In the 1980s, when Memphis was active, California was the envy of the new generation, and the hippie culture from the 1960s was still there, and the spirit of rebellion and casual style was preferred. Memphis was looking in the same direction in the furniture sector when Steve Jobs was about to launch Macintosh Computers and start fighting the giant IBM. Postmodernism is an ideological movement that has spread since the mid-20th century, trying to criticize and break away from the modern framework. Influenced by philosophy, art, architecture, etc., it is characterized by relativism and pluralism, doubting objective truths and universal values. Memphis has an important position in the history of Italian modern design, and has also become a representative design of postmodern.

For nearly 10 years from 80 to 10 years, Memphis has fought against the industrial design that follows the trend of the German Bauhaus, also known as the founder of modern design, and has built a new world. It was also a movement to explore new expressions in the genealogy of pop culture since the 1960s, and it continued to release geometric and colorful furniture and miscellaneous goods that did not emphasize function, and even after the dissolution of the group in 1988, its activities were inspered to designers around the world. I'm continuing to give you a piration.

The earliest example of the use of the term postmodernism in broad art is Charles Jenks' Architectural Language of Postmodernism (1977). However, Jenks' writings presented an alternative alternative to modernist architecture, and the aspect of criticism of "modern (modern)" in the sense above is not very strong. It was after the French philosopher Jean-François Riotard's "Conditions of Postmodernity" (1979) that "postmodernism" began to be strongly promoted in the sense organized at the beginning. According to Riotar in the book, science so far needed a philosophy as a "big story" to justify itself, and Riotar "modern" the era that complied with such a "big story", And the era when distrust of it was rampant is called "postmodern". Therefore, according to Riotar's definition, postmodern is an era when the "big story" as the basis of this science was lost.

However, since the 80s, "postmodernism" have become a kind of slogan, and there is an aspect that it has become a label for affirmation or denial given to novelties, and even today, "postmo The word "dan" often means that the meaning of what people assume, that is, the "modern" assumed there, is a significant difference. Riotar himself, in view of this situation, realizes that the word "postmodern" he used in the past caused a big misunderstanding, and re-says that "postmodernism" is "rewriting modernism". At the very least, it is necessary to be aware that "postmodern" is not just a term that indicates the division of the era, but is always an epistemological concept that has a tense relationship with "modern".

With this exciting essay, modernist architecture is said to have begun to walk its own style away from previous style architecture. For example, painting found its own uniqueness in its "flatness" in modernism, and moved away from the imitation of drawing subjects, and, so to speak, came to abstract expression as "the expression of the painting itself".

"The most profound thing in human beings is the skin."

Paul Valery

In the words of French poet Paul Valerie, it has the meaning of "the human surface, that is, the skin, is the entrance to the inner surface". It is used as a word to suggest a human approach to the depths that can be reached to a more essential part by deeply exploring the physical surface of the skin.

According to structuralism, "By analyzing the structure behind the phenomenon, it is possible to extract the internal grammar of a system, and each system acts accordingly. There, everything becomes predictable, and coincidence and creativity are eliminated. In an era where all values have become flat as a result, it is inevitable that architecture will be free from "not decorating". More than 100 years have passed since Adolf Roth's "Decoration and Crime" in the early 20th century, and trends such as postmodernism and Memphis re-evaluation in recent years have created new interpretations of decoration and design, along with new ideas about modernism. It may be a wolf smoke.