Platform_Architecture_and_Design_1.pdf

PORTRAIT
55
For example, “Memphis”
was a phenomenon that
summed up a specific
period in time and it had
the merit of expressing
the needs, even the formal
ones, of a particular
moment. Certainly,
from a distance it seems
dated, but there was then
the evident need to be
completely modern.
LB This attitude is
the fate of us Italians
who, after Futurism,
have this fundamental
need to be modern and
unconventional, and
critical.
On the train going to
University, I found
a copy of Casabella
with a picture of
Ettore Sottsass on the
cover who was talking
about “The planet as a
festival”. Immediately
I understood that
everything was much
simpler and it was
really interesting. It was
enough to look at the
world from that point
of view. As Seneca said
“know how to put things
in the mind’s eye”. So
looking at the world in
that way opened up new
perspectives for me.
MDL Yes, that’s an interesting observation, linking events
related to industrial production to our artistic tradition.
LB You mentioned Memphis, what was your relationship with
that period and that movement?
My time in the city from 1969 to 1975, meant that I got to know
a world which included people like Natalini, Branzi from
Archizoom and everything that revolved around architecture
and its related themes. Then it was Branzi who introduced me
to Sottsass, in Milan.
MDL I’m not Memphis, I must say. However, in those years
I was effectively possessed by Ettore, I was dominated by
him and everything he did. I ate, wrote and thought like
him. In effect he was my teacher even if he didn’t want to be
considered as such in the least. He definitely didn’t want to be
a teacher. He was a poet.
LB How did you come to meet him?
MDL I went to study architecture in Firenze, most concerned
about the fact that it was a very technical subject and that
I should have to learn formulas and complicated systems.
LB What do you think of that period, and the whole debate
which seemed to set the masters of Italian industrial design
like Zanuso, Magistretti and Castiglioni against the Memphis
group?
MDL l never saw it as a divided world. Perhaps this
confrontation was over-emphasized from outside in order to
highlight the differences, but even within there were serious
contrasts between Sottsass and Mendini, between Sottsass
and Branzi, but confrontation is part of our lifeblood.
What was one of the basic values of the movement was the
intention of taking a debate and discussions to extremes
Michele De Lucchi interviewd by Luisa Bocchietto