Radical Design

Radical Design knows its origins from Italy in the late 1960’s. It was a movement which came after by Pop Art which had lasted only a few years. It rejected rational principles of Modern movement thus being more politicized and theoretical. It fact by this time, the real values of design were being extracted out of its previous meaning. It was more informal and criticized development made on technology and consumerism.

Ettore Sotsass was the key of anti-design who designed the Carlton room divider, designed in 1981 made out of wood and plastic laminate. It is not that functional but at least, it has some aesthetic value due to its geometric structure and use of colours.

There was a designer Claes Oldenburg who designed soft sculptures which does not blend with nature, not at all. Here are some examples of his works.

In 1966 he also designed the ‘Soft Toilet’ which in my opinion has no meaning an value in design. It is just a toilet made out of textiles and lacks both functionality and aesthetic beauty. Here one can point out the absence of design, maybe this shouldn’t have been called a design movement in the first place. It is made with no purpose or other reasons. It is just there to express the ‘creativity’ of who designed it.

Groups which contributed to this design movement were Archizoom Super Studio and also Gruppo Strum. These groups brought the fact of what was actually ‘good taste’. Other groups such as the Vitra also came up with such designs for example the Miniature Selene Chair by Vico Magistretti. In my opinion, it does not contain aesthetic values, with its bright colour and it looks like it is melting.

On the other hand there was another design Gatti Paolini, Pietro Gatti and Theodoro who at least did something which can be used and has a function ‘The cushion Sacco" chair, made in 1968. It is made with modern material and can be counted as a ‘chair’; the radical ‘chair’ since a real chair is one which usually has legs and arms rests (if any) but this cushion is there and when you feel like, you just lay down and make yourself comfortable.

 

Nowadays, radical design can still be felt but it was diminished due to Post-modernism. I believe it was more of a meaningless phase in time with non-sense designs however still making part of design history since it effected today’s designs and artistic values. 

References: 

Fiell, C. and Fiell, P. (1999). Design of the 20th century. Ko¨ln: Taschen.

Final project by leo989. 2015. . [ONLINE] Available at: <http://leo989.github.io/final-project/.> [Accessed 28 January 2015].