We are almost finishing the school year, during one of our last classes we were
learning about post modernism and the Italian avant garde, and a phrase catch my
attention “ in a global, pluralist culture, there were no agreed aesthetic
goals” . Postmodernism was all about the psychological relation of people with
design and architecture, we saw a few examples of symbolism in architecture,
and also the re integration of old movements to regain the connection lost with
modernism , we started seeing a lot of mixtures of styles, almost like they had
used everything they could and integrated it to design and architecture with
the only purpose of remembering and regaining that connection and although the intention in the representation
of this was totally achieved , aesthetic standards where put aside.
Aesthetic, “good taste”, good design, standards, all where
associated with modernism and when the movement died people see those terms
with disgust, but why? I personally think that design must have certain
parameters, if not designs becomes art, not that art is bad, but good design
must appeal to people, must provoke people to “want it”, the desire, while art
in my opinion has one and only finality :expression, either of opinions
feelings, and others. Both can be related but they do not have the same goal.
Following this we came to the Italian avant garde, and what
did they want ? : Exactly the opposite, they did not want to be related with
aesthetics, standards, materials, or anything they wanted freedom to express
and create. During finals of 1960 and the 1970’s different groups where formed,
Archizoom, Superstudio , UFO, and finally the one that caught my eye Studio Alchimia.
There I was sitting on my desk watching the slides of the
presentation, one after the other it just didn’t make sense. It reached the point where I was so confused
that I didn’t even know what was my opinion about it. Founded by the distinguished
Italian designer and architect Alessandro Mendinni in 1976, colours, patterns,
forms, and creativity where terms related to it, but something was mentioned
about it during class, Studio Alchimia never reached commercial success.
Then I went back to the phrase in class “ In a global,
pluralist culture, there were no agreed aesthetic goals” … So if supposedly there were no aesthetic goals then why Studio
Alchimia didn’t reached success? . I think there is a need for aesthetic goals,
a guidance, to follow a line; for example in materials, they mixed a lot of
inexpensive with expensive materials, which at the same time made their designs
unreachable for most people. They clearly were following the principle of no
aesthetics but they didn’t reach success because it didn’t appeal to people, in
the way of desire( the look of it) and closeness , instead it did made a huge
impact on the world of design because of the power of representation and
uniqueness of each piece, yet again it was so far from what people would want
for their homes that passed exactly from being design to art pieces.
I found a few pictures online that represent this opinion
In both of this we see a cabinet and a book case respectively,
but do they look like them? Which is the aesthetics of them?, why do they look
like sculptures? Why is the bookcase without books or the cabinet without
objects on its shelves?. The answer is that there is simply not an specific aesthetic, no taste standard, just pure design process and experimentation,
creativity was there main goal and they achieved this with great success,
design without judgments according to some, but I don’t think that actually
exist, in fact this may be another of the factors related to their pour
commercial success. Judgment is always present, present in this post, and
present in the people that will read this and have their own opinion, like the
one that I am expressing right now .the Alchimia group didn’t follow any standards,
it was pure expression and for me that is more close to art than design. I
wouldn’t use this pieces for what they were design for, I would not put books,
or objects instead I would exhibit them. And that right there is a judgment already.
F!
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