Postmodern Italian Aluminum, Glass, and Wood Console Table by James Irvine for Memphis, 1986

Though he passed away prematurely, in February 2013, at the hands of pneumonia, British product and furniture designer James Irvine endures as a visionary of millennial-era functionalism. Often collaborating with the likes of Jasper Morrison, Marc Newson, Konstantin Grcic, , among others, Irvine blended ergonomics and practicality with wit and style, designing everything from bottle caps to city buses.

Born 1958 in London, Irvine trained first at the Kingston School of Art, and then, at London’s Royal College of Arts—the powerhouse institution that has incubated everyone from Max Lamb, Simon Hasan, and Philippe Malouin to Committee’s Harry Richardson and Studio Glithero’s Sarah van Gameren. Upon graduating in 1984, the resolutely post-punk Irvine moved permanently to Milan to join in the blossoming postmodern movement. He took a design consultant position at Olivetti—working alongside Memphis pioneers Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi, and George Sowden’s—before moving on to Toshiba’s design studio, where he proposed highly ergonomic computer designs. By 1989, he was seen as a rising design star in Milan and was invited to design a Pepper Mill for Alessi and taps for Fantini, which bear the flamboyant geometries of the late Memphis years. 

Although Olivetti folded under competitive pressures from Epson, Canon, and the like, Irvine remained in partnership with Sottsass well into the millennium; their salient post-Olivetti projects included the establishment of Vitra’s Citizens Office (1991) initiative, which essentially outlined principles for the maximally ergonomic workplace, as well as the multi-hued interior for Milan’s Malpensa airport in 2000. 

Irvine also maintained his own studio, which produced the Piceno Collection for Cappellini in 1991; this vividly-painted beechwood furniture series—including a chair, a coatrack, and tables—appropriated traditional silhouettes alongside eccentric curves, evincing the liminal stage Irvine found himself after the 1980s: somewhere between postmodern ostentation and the elegant resolve of his later work.

At the turn of the millennium, Irvine remained prolific. Some of his most enduring designs from this era are the Lunar Sofa for B&B Italia / C&B Italia (1998), the X5 Rug for Asplund (1999), and the Centomila Chairs for Magis (1999). In 1999, he procured a substantial commission from the city of Hannover to head up a full re-design of their bus fleet, to be manufactured by Mercedes-Benz. From then on, he continued to design a variety of goods at all scales, conceptual and practical, for luxury and economy brands, for example his Float Circle Light for Artemide (2000), rattan Gunghult Rocker for Ikea (2002), his Lounge Chair for WMF (2006)—before delving, in 2007, into an art directorship at Thonet, for whom he designed his innovative Loop Chair in 2004. During this tenure, Irvine introduced Thonet to Muji—for whom Irvine had also designed—and the two brands collaborated in 2009 on streamlined updates to Thonet’s traditional forms of tubular steel and bentwood furniture.

Launched in Milan in 1980, Memphis was a design collective that aimed to disrupt the status quo of the design industry. Led by architect-designer Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007), these designers conceived and produced era-defining furniture, ceramics, and lighting that disregarded the tenets of modernism in favor or forms and ornamentation infused with historical and pop culture visual vocabularies.

According to legend, in late 1980, Sottsass was in his Milanese apartment with a group of young designers—including radical designer and Alchimia member Michele De Lucchi (b. 1951)— discussing how bourgeois and irrelevant design had become. The 1966 Bob Dylan song Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again was playing in the background. Together they decided to create a collection of new work full of vitality and in tune with times. They enlisted production work from cabinetmaker Renzo Brugola, a showroom from Mario and Brunella Godani, and financial backing from Ernesto Gismondi, president of Artemide. Over the years, prominent Memphis designers would include Martine Bedin, Andrea Branzi, Aldo Cibic, Michael Graves, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Shiro Kuramata, Javier Mariscal, Alessandro Mendini, Luciano Paccagnella, Nathalie du Pasquier, Barbara Radice, Peter Shire, George Sowden, Matteo Thun, Masanori Umeda, Marco Zanini, and Marco Zanuso Jr.

Memphis’s first exhibition took place on September 18, 1981 at Milan’s Arc ’74 and launched the group to international notoriety. The provocative, postmodern pieces designed for the exhibition featured bold colors and unconventional shapes; many were coated in mismatched, patterned laminates—a material specifically chosen for its connotation of cheapness. The first Memphis collection included Sottsass’s Beverly Cabinet, Tahiti Lamp, and Carlton Bookcase; Sowden’s Oberoi Armchairs; du Pasquier’s 1950s-style, pink and black textile print; Bedin’s Superlamp; and de Lucchi’s Oceanic Lamp.

The group went on to hold more exhibitions in London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, San Francisco, New York, and Milan. Sottsass left in 1985 to resume his architectural role at Sottsass Associati. In 1988, the group disbanded. In the mid-1990s, Dr. Alberto Bianchi Albrici bought the Memphis-Milano brand and has continued to the produce classic Memphis designs ever since.

While always controversial, Memphis has an immense influence on the course of design history. In the 2010s, the Memphis aesthetic has seen a revival across creative disciplines; Memphis’s recent influence, for example, can be seen in Christian Dior’s 2011 fall haute couture collection, Missoni’s 2015 winter collection, and a number of exhibitions presented during Milan Design Week in 2013 and 2014.

* Special thanks to Memphis-Milano and Dennis Zanone, an avid collector of vintage Memphis, for images.