Studio Alchimia

Alchimia formed in Milan in 1976 around Alessandro Mendini, with Sottsass among its members, and argued that design should be decoration again — that a chair could quote a style, that kitsch was a legitimate source, and that a household object need not pretend to be functional. The Proust chair, painted in pointillist colour, is the piece most people know.

It is the missing link between the radical architecture of the early 1970s and the louder, more commercial Memphis. The output is small, often one-off or hand-painted, and much less widely copied than Memphis — which makes it harder to find and easier to authenticate.

Read it by the surface. Alchimia painted, decorated and quoted; where Memphis shocked with plastic, Alchimia layered pattern onto existing forms.

The radical years (1976–1980) are the theoretical phase: manifestos, one-off pieces, and the painted chairs.

The 1980s overlap with Memphis, after which the studio's influence is absorbed into the wider postmodern market.