Pomo summertime: Italian designer Alessandro Mendini’s 1978 Proust armchair, one of the most iconic chairs of the final century and a precursor to Postmodern style, has gone into manufacturing for the 1st time.
Mendini initially created the Proust chair as a one particular-off piece meant for French writer Marcel Proust. Its design combines a Baroque-style form with a pattern of tiny hand-painted Pointillist coloured dots across its wooden frame and upholstery.
With this mash-up of historical types, Mendini paved the way for Postmodernism in style. He is described as the “saturnine conceptualist of Italian Postmodernism” by author and curator Glenn Adamson in Dezeen’s guidebook to the controversial movement.
The chair, which is Mendini’s best-recognized perform, was the first in a series acknowledged as Redesigns. The series brought collectively the designer’s academic theories on the significance of historical context for style and the significance of surface physical appearance in a fast-moving globe.
Related story: The Dezeen guidebook to Postmodern architecture and layout
Mendini described the chair as “an intellectual workout” in a latest interview with Dezeen, in which he also stated that there is no much more ideology in layout and that the business has misplaced its vital edge.
The Proust armchair has been reinterpreted by the designer numerous occasions, appearing in ceramic, bronze and most recently marble at museums and style occasions all more than the globe. Each and every iteration to date has been a restricted-edition release.
Photograph by Alessandro Paderni
Now Magis has put the chair into mass manufacturing for the very first time. “This gem of technologies and manufacturing brings new energy in its colours and atmospheres, making it a really timeless object,” stated Mendini.
Connected material: see more stories about Alessandro Mendini
The Magis Proust is manufactured utilizing rotational moulding, a procedure that includes slowly rotating a heated hollow mould. Centrifugal forces disperse the softened plastic material inside to the walls of the mould, forcing it to get on the form as it cools.
Alessandro Mendini. Photograph by Alessandro Paderni
The chairs are accessible in blue, red, white, orange, and the original dotted pattern. It was also developed in a colour named “violato” for this year’s D’Annunzio e i Giardini di Pan event, celebrating the poetry of the late Italian writer Gabriele D’Annunzio, who coined the term for the hue halfway amongst pink and purple.
Photography is by Tom Vack, courtesy of Magis, unless stated otherwise.
