Archizoom Associati

Emblematic of the Italian radical movement, Archizoom Associati is a design agency founded in 1966 in Florence, Italy, by four architects: Andrea Branzi (1938), Gilberto Corretti (1941), Paolo Deganello (1940), Massimo Morozzi (1941), and joined in 1968 by two designers, Dario Bartolini (1943) and Lucia Bartolini (1944). The firm was active from 1966 to 1974. Archizoom is at the heart of the avant-garde in design and architecture. Their name pays homage to the British architectural group Archigram, and echoes the fictional and popular world of comics and pop art.

In the 1970s, the architects of Archizoom Associati considered design inseparable from research and political commitment in the broadest sense: ''Doing architecture didn't just mean making houses or, more generally, building useful things, it meant expressing oneself, communicating, debating, creating.to express oneself, to communicate, to debate, to freely create one's own cultural space, based on the right of each individual to create his or her own environment" (Andrea Branzi).

Archizoom Associati has distinguished itself by its critical approach to design and architecture, challenging established conventions and exploring new forms of expression. They sought to expand the boundaries of design by drawing inspiration from the social, cultural and political context of the time.

With a critical realism approach, the group rejected twentieth-century modernist doctrines and their definitive model of society. Preferring the real world in all its complexity and contradictions, Archizoom tends to favor situational settings that enable the user to play an active role in his or her environment. Rejecting consumerist values, the members of the group choose derision to denounce the cultural crisis of Western societies and the general impoverishment of creation.

However, Archizoom Associati's drawings and texts are more utopian than object-oriented - a trend common to the Radical Design movement as a whole. A few ideas were nevertheless realized, such as the "Mies" Armchair, which exaggerates the features of Mies Van der Rohe's famous sige to the point of appearing unusable. With its pompous "Dream Beds", Archizoom caricatures the kitsch of Arts Deco and Pop Art, at the same time as the much-vaunted Bel Design: bad taste becomes part of the program. Between 1966 and 1973, Archizoom Associati designed modular furniture for Poltronova, conveying liberating messages and calling for a new autonomy in the management of spaces (Superonda sofas, 1966 and Safari, 1967). Their highly original furniture and objects are imbued with humor and provocation. Their work was characterized by the use of unconventional materials and the pursuit of a bold new aesthetic.

In addition to these experiments in design, Archizoom is developing research into the city, the environment and mass culture. The collective has produced a number of emblematic projects that reflect their radical vision of architecture. Among the most famous is "No-Stop City", a utopian proposal for an endless megalopolis, where architecture would merge into an infinite urban landscape. This project challenged traditional ideas of urbanism and urban planning.

Archizoom produced numerous critical texts and took part in many exhibitions, helping to spread their radical ideas: Superarchitettura (1966), the XIV and XV Milan Triennales (1968 and 1973) and the exhibition ''Italy: the New Domestic Landscape'', organized by Emilio Ambasz at MoMA in New York (1972), where the agency presented an empty room inhabited by the voice of a little girl.

In crisis in 1972, the group disbanded in 1974, after participating in the creation of the short-lived architects' and artists' cooperative Global Tools in Florence.Global Tools (1973-1975), a counter-school of architecture and design that advocated the free development of individual creativity.The group's ideas were perpetuated, albeit without the same political implications, in later Anti-Design movements: Alchimia and Memphis.

The group's archives are held today at the Centro Studi e Archivio della Communicazione Università degli Studi di Mauve, at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and at the FRAC Centre in Orléans. A copy of the Safari sofa is in the collections of the Centre Pompidou.