Italian firm Superstudio was founded in 1966 by Adolfo Natalini (1941–) and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia (1941–). Working in the fields of architecture, interior and industrial design, Superstudio established a presence as a key player in the Radical architecture movement of the late 1960s. Disenchanted with modernism, the group was part of the Anti-Design movement, envisioning a future landscape in which individuals work and live in a space free from nonessential objects.
These images are from their contribution to the 1972 Museum of Modern Art exhibition, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape. Working in a Cartesian ‘squared’ surface, Superstudio offers an “alternative model for life on earth”.
In this exhibition, we present the model of a mental attitude. This is not a three-dimensional model of a reality that can be given concrete form by a mere transposition of scale, but a visual rendition of a critical attitude toward (or a hope for) the activity of designing, understood as philosophical speculation, as a means to knowledge, as critical existence.”
“When design as an inducement to consume ceases to exist, an empty area is created, in which, slowly, as the need to act, mold, transform, give, conserve, modify, come to light.
The alternative image (which is, really, the hope of an image) is a more serene, distended world, in which actions can find their complete sense and life is possible with few, more or less magical, utensils.
[ All images © ]
Further reading:
Superstudio Architectural Group, Design Museum Touring Exhibition
All images sourced from the book that accompanied the 1972 Museum of Modern Art exhibition, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape. Design credits: Superstudio (Piero Frassinelli, Alessandro Magris, Adolfo Natalini, Alessandro Poli, Cristiano Toraldo di Francia).
[ All images © ]
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Sandi Vincent grew up in the bay area of California surrounded by mid-century modern architecture and other influences responsible for her affinity for the period and its pop style, including her early exposure to The Monkees, The Avengers and Gerald McBoing-Boing. Sandi now resides in Portland and is a board member of a local nonprofit preservation group, the Mid-Century Modern League. In her day job at a community foundation, she sports the web/social media/print materials coordinator title.
Follow Sandi on Twitter > @SandiV
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