Trashy, eclectic and collectible: Memphis and the joy of bad taste
Rowan Moore
Memphis was a firework. Launched with a bang in 1981, with a party in Milan with 2,500 guests, it glittered and popped until its fragments fell to earth in 1987. Which possibly was always the plan, if there had been a plan. Memphis never sought immortality, nor the establishment of eternal verities to rule design for ever. It was about life lived in the moment – to the extent that inanimate objects can communicate such a thing – about the freedom to create and make mistakes.
David Bowie, an avid collector of the design collective’s work, spoke of “the jolt, the impact, created by walking into a room containing a cabinet by Memphis”. Its effect was, as he said, “visceral”, at least when it started. But its ice-cream colours, its doo-wop-Mesopotamian-Picasso-deco-iconic-ironic wonky eclecticism had, by the time it wound down, become a cliche of advertising agency reception areas and the style of homes of the evil rich in Hollywood comedies.