Alessandro Mendini & Marcello Nizzoli Biography
Alessandro Mendini graduated from the Polytechnic of Milan and began his career at Marcello Nizzoli's studio, where he worked until 1970. He then directed the magazines Casabella (1970-1976), Modo (1977-1979) and Domus (1979-1985/2010-2011). In 1973 he was one of the founders of Global Tools, a collective that participated in the Radical Design experience, strongly opposing tradition. In 1979 he co-founded the Alchimia studio, with the aim of creating objects inspired by popular culture and kitsch, unrelated to the parameters of functionality linked to industrial production.
In 1981 he participated in the first collection of the Memphis group with the futuristic Cipriani bar cabinet. In 1989 he opened the Atelier Mendini in Milan, where he created objects, furniture, environments, paintings, installations and buildings, also collaborating as a designer and consultant for various companies internationally. He was a professor of design at the Universität für angewandte Kunst in Vienna and an honorary professor at the GAFA Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in China. He has organized several exhibitions and seminars in Italy and abroad and his works are exhibited in museums around the world. In 2014 he received his third ADI Compasso d'Oro Lifetime Achievement Award.
Marcello Nizzoli was an industrial designer, architect and painter, considered one of the most important of the Italian twentieth century. He was the father of the famous Olivetti typewriters, thus becoming a symbol of Italian modernity and post-war industrial rebirth. His objects have also been exhibited at the MOMA in New York. After graduating from the Art Institute of Parma, Nizzoli became known as a painter and joined the Nuove Tendenze group, creating advertising posters for Campari. In the 1930s he taught at the ISIA in Monza and took part in the staging of various exhibitions, including the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution (1932), the Aeronautics Exhibition (1934) and the Salone della Vittoria at the VI Triennale in Milan in 1936.
His fame is mainly linked to his collaboration with Olivetti, where in the 1930s he began working as an advertiser and later as a designer, creating, among others, the famous Lettera 22. At the same time, he worked as an architect and created numerous buildings , including those for the Olivetti company. In 1966 he received the title of Honorary Degree in architecture from the Polytechnic of Milan. The Lettera 22 was a portable mechanical typewriter, one of Olivetti's most successful products in the 1950s. It has received awards both in Italy (Compasso d'Oro in 1954) and abroad (best design product of the century according to the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1959) and is exhibited in the permanent design collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
