exhibition
from 22.07.2011 to 23.10.2011

Alessandro Mendini

Design as a Cabinet of Curiosities

Alessandro Mendini, born in Milan in 1931, is widely regarded as one of the outstanding minds of the international design scene. He is the agent provocateur of industrial design who rebels against the power of habit. His designs are characterized by neither superficial functionality nor the style of the day. Instead, he has constantly and consistently undermined conventional categories by turning everyday appliances and objects into new ironic pieces infused with color and lively shapes.

For many years now he has been taking us all by surprise with his re-designs. Attacked by his imagination, bland everyday furniture undergoes a bizarre metamorphosis and turns into radiantly colorful objects. The Milan-based architect turned designer has worked for renowned companies such as Alessi, Cartier, Swatch and Bisazza. In his capacity as editor-in-chief of influential magazines such as Domus and Casabella Mendini has stimulated many a new trend and outlined the theoretical foundations for his notions of design.

The Wunderkammer Design exhibition brings together a whole host of examples from Mendini's oeuvre of the last 40 years, all presented in an exhibition architecture he himself designed. It immerses us in a multi-faceted scenery of Mendini's microcosm, a world of astonishing and marvelously opulent colors and exoticism – a homage on the occasion of his 80th birthday.