Designer
Alessandro Mendini
Alessandro Mendini was born in Milan on 16 August 1931 and graduated in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano in 1959. He worked with Marcello Nizzoli, edited Domus magazine from 1979 to 1985 and, from 1989 until his death in Milan…
Biography
Background
Alessandro Mendini was born in Milan on 16 August 1931 and graduated in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano in 1959. He worked with Marcello Nizzoli, edited Domus magazine from 1979 to 1985 and, from 1989 until his death in Milan on 18 February 2019, ran Atelier Mendini with his brother Francesco.
Signature Style
Mendini was a leading voice of Italian Radical and postmodern design. He mixed cultures and forms of expression, working across graphics, furniture, interiors, painting and architecture, and he also wrote and taught.
Notable Works
His best-known pieces are the Proust armchair, from his Re-Design period, and the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands; the Amuleto lamp was chosen as one of 100 objects representing Italian design in 2019. For Kartell he designed the Roy stool, a Chinese-style stool carrying a pattern in homage to Roy Lichtenstein, dated 2016 on Kartell's data sheet.
Legacy
He received the Compasso d'Oro in 1979, 1981 and 2014 and was named A&W Designer of the Year in 2017. In 2022 he was inducted into the Milan Hall of Fame.