Wednesday, 3 May 2017

Seconda chair Mario Botta

Contrast between Botta and the Memphis group.
Mario Botta is a Swiss architect, Graduated from the school of Milan and continued his studies further on in Venice. Throughout his career Botta managed to design iconic buildings and products such as Seconda chair, Quinta chair, the contemporary art museum in Tokyo, Japan and more. This designer and architect was highly infulended by the famous Le Corbusier and the American architect Louis Kahn.
Seconda Chair
The Seconda chair was designed in 1982 in Italy and was manufactured by Alias Company. The seconda chair is well known for its geometric and minimal design, the characteristics of this chair are following straight lines with the use of right angles and cylindrical form on the top for the cushioning this style was more found back in the 1970’s ‘The time of Minimalism’.  Materials used: Steel, lacquered steel and polyurethane are some the materials that were used to create this chair, these characteristics and materials chosen are a true depiction of what the architect Le Corbusier usually used in his designs. The Seconda chair is a representation of the contemporary style which was developed past the half mark of the 20th century.
Mario Botta Seconda Armchair for Alias
This is an eccentric piece of furniture were it can fit basically to every setting imagined, with the use of dark tone and minimal structure it helps with complimenting any type of setting. The idea behind a matte black aesthetic was to evoke rationality in response against the Memphis movement back in the 80’s.
80’s design and the Memphis group:
Postmodernism is the movement that describes best the Memphis group found in 1981, a group which was formed by Italian designers that created fabrics, ceramics, glass and metal objects that all together formed part as a furniture piece.
Carlton room divider
Eccentric, colourful, strange and bizarre design are the characteristics found in the Postmodernism movement, this movement evoked a lot of different feeling within the design industry, this lead to have a huge impact later on in the 90’s as this movements peek was not when it was found in the 80’s but it was more popular in the 90’s. This style shows rationality against black un-humoured design, as the leader of this foundation Ettore Sottsass called this movement ‘The New International Style’

Phillipe Stark lemon squeezer for Alessi
Critics and designers were calling this movement as a joke especially by contemporary designers at the time. Art deco and Pop art are some movements the respective designers brought their inspirations and ideas from, although it is not always easily to find these connections they surely liked the idea of proposing and creating a futuristic and unreal theme to their designs. This was a time were Classicism, Art Deco, Constructivism, De Stijl, Surrealism, Computer Imagery were all playing a part in the Postmodernism inspirations. Design were meant to look kitch both with the materials used and use of non-blending color but quite the contrary, bright and highly contrasting tones. I myself see a lot of resemblance in the Surreal and Art Deco style, just by taking a closer look to its characteristics this style was meant to make the viewer think twice and question the design principles and contradict the rules and standards required which is what makes this movement fun.




Bibliography:
Seconda Armchair | Alias | AmbienteDirect.com. 2017. Seconda Armchair | Alias | AmbienteDirect.com. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.ambientedirect.com/en/alias/seconda-armchair_pid_601_5881.html. [Accessed 03 May 2017].


Dezeen. 2017. The Dezeen guide to Postmodern architecture and design. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2015/07/23/guide-to-postmodern-architecture-design-glenn-adamson/226747/. [Accessed 03 May 2017].



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