Alessandro Mendini: Imagination Takes Command is the first comprehensive monograph on Mendini's complete body of work — a figure whose eccentric, intellectually charged practice cut through Radical design, Postmodernism, and commercial collaboration with equal conviction.
About This Book
Born in Milan in 1931, Alessandro Mendini occupied a singular position in twentieth-century Italian design: a theorist, editor, and maker whose work resisted easy categorisation. This monograph traces that full arc — from his role at the centre of Italy's Radical design movement in the 1960s and 1970s through to his collaborations with Alessi, Hermès, Swarovski, and Supreme. Written by critic Stefano Casciani, who worked alongside Mendini for many years, the book draws on previously unpublished documents, photographs, and ephemera, and is threaded through with Mendini's own idiosyncratic sketches. It is as much a primary source as a critical survey — essential reading for anyone serious about postmodern design history and Italian architecture.
Key Features
- 300 pages of photographs, unpublished archival documents, ephemera, and Mendini's original sketches
- Written by critic and long-term collaborator Stefano Casciani
- Features Mendini's iconic Proust chair and his work across Domus magazine editorship
- Published by Phaidon, ISBN 9781838668679
What You'll Discover
- How Mendini's position within Italy's Radical design movement shaped a lifelong resistance to functionalist orthodoxy
- The intellectual and aesthetic through-lines connecting his editorial work at Domus to his product collaborations with major international brands
- A firsthand critical perspective from Casciani, informed by years of direct collaboration, that gives the text an intimacy unavailable in secondary scholarship
- How the book itself functions as a design object — pink cloth cover, die-cut laminated chapter openers with wavy edges — embodying Mendini's own aesthetic language
About the Author
Stefano Casciani is a design critic who worked with Alessandro Mendini for many years, giving him privileged access to the designer's practice, archive, and thinking. His account draws on that sustained proximity to produce a monograph that is as personal as it is authoritative.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 300
- Dimensions: 305 × 238 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781838668679
- Publisher: Phaidon
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Designers and historians with a serious interest in postmodern design, Italian design history, and the cultural politics of Radical design; collectors of significant design monographs.