Alessandro Mendini’s trio of ‘energetic’ cabinets for Porro is our Best Archive Discovery

The work of Alessandro Mendini needs little introduction; as a major exponent of Italy’s Radical Design movement and founder of design group Alchimia, but also as the creator of some of contemporary design’s most memorable icons. So it was a pleasant surprise when his daughters Fulvia and Elisa Mendini, custodians of his archives and legacy, resurfaced a trio of cabinets to be reissued by Italian furniture company Porro. 

Alessandro Mendini and Porro

Mendini had worked with Porro in 2014, when he created the ‘Maggio’ chest of drawers and ‘Schermo’ cabinet. The designer had experimented with wood marquetry, creating abstract geometric compositions in elm, oak and acacia on their surfaces. Mendini not only combined straight and curved lines to achieve the pattern, but he also played with three-dimensionality with sloped fronts, oblique lines and trapezoid forms.

‘Our father has always been fascinated and interested in high craftsmanship: a thing that he found in Porro on the occasion of their first experience together. There he had played with the absence of colour, or actually with the colour of the natural wood essences, which was something that he liked so much,’ says Elisa Mendini.

Porro recently went back into the Mendini archives, working closely with the family to bring to life a previously unseen body of work. The result is ‘Linea’, a family of containers comprising a high writing desk with a drop-leaf door and inner partitions, a close cupboard with hinged doors and an open cupboard with drawer, each released in a limited edition of 50 pieces. The collection is defined by the same marquetry approach of Mendini’s previous works for Porro, but in this case the compositions are rendered in exquisite primary colours. ‘If we had to describe these pieces of furniture, we’d say they are suggestive, energetic, bright and luminous,’ adds Fulvia Mendini.

In the archive, the sisters had found the drawings for the furniture, which they describe as having ‘a very advanced level of design’, and together with Porro they developed the final objects. With its focus on innovation and craftsmanship, Porro was the perfect companion to work on the intricacy of the designs, which express Mendini’s bold vision and his ability to balance design and manufacturing (‘He was like a funambolo, a tightrope walker,’ says Maria Porro).

The three works combine primary colours with black and white elements. ‘They are intersections of lines that result in patchwork-like triangular shapes,’ explains Fulvia. The drawings suggested a depth that ordinary lacquer could not achieve. ‘This is why we looked for an alternative solution and found a producer of cellulose acetate plates, a material normally used for glasses that is also suitable for making the pointed geometries of these decorations,’ explains Maria Porro. ‘For these sideboards we also had to provide a particular fastening system, experimenting with different solutions.’

The compositions are framed by solid bands of colours, or elevated by a light blue border, an empty space, a curved-edged drawer. ‘Lorenzo and Maria Porro wanted to do a tribute to the work of our dad, where colour has always been a protagonist,’ adds Elisa.

Concludes Porro: ‘with the chromatic exuberance typical of Alessandro Mendini's design, Linea perfectly expresses all the ingredients of a Porro object: geometric purity, accurate workmanship and technological details.’

porro.it

A version of this article appears in the February 2024 issue of Wallpaper* – dedicated to the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2024 – available in print from 4 January, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today