Alessandro Mendini- Postmodernism

Mendini was one of the founders of new design. As well as being an architect, he was also a designer, artist, theorist and poet. He was sure that people no longer wanted to see mass produced products. He used to say, ''Every person is different, so why shouldn't an object also be different?''. His starting point when designing an object was beauty. Mendini believed that everything had already been invented and used and all that remained was to use it again and re-design it. Mendini loved to work with others, so his artistic career mingled with various artists, architects and designers, thus producing a large creation of furniture, objects, clothes, decorations, paintings, ceramics, jewellery and even buildings such as the famous Groninger Museum.

Proust Chair by Alessandro Mendini

One of Mendini's 'redesigned furniture' was the Proust Chair. This was a link between the classic and the modern. As Mendini believed that modern design was at an end and no one could create any new designs, he took it upon himself to redesign a classic Louis XV style chair. He was inspired by the work of Marcel Proust, thus calling it the Proust chair. Mendini created this chair in pointillism style, which is a technique where a picture is formed by painting a series of tiny dots. Each dot was painted to represent a fragment of memory. The whole series was hand painted by Mendini himself.

Lots of Dots by Swatch

This Swatch watch was called Lots of Dots. It was inspired by the pointillism style of the Proust chair. The watch case, as well as the buckle have been produced in transparent plastic, to not take away from the style of the dots.  The coloured dots have been reproduced to harmonise the colours of the Proust chair. On the watch's face they have inserted Mendini's signature as authentication of the design.

Groninger Museum. 2014. Alessandro Mendini. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.groningermuseum.nl/en/alessandro-mendini. [Accessed 26 January 14].

Design Time. 2010. Design with historical influence. [ONLINE] Available at: http://gem101.wordpress.com/2010/05/22/design-with-historical-influence/. [Accessed 26 January 14].

SirWATCH. 1992. SWATCH GENT LOTS OF DOTS. [ONLINE] Available at: http://shop.sirwatch.com/SWATCH-LOTS-OF-DOTS. [Accessed 26 January 14].