The movement called Radical design in Italy is loosely dated from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. Emerging largely from the architecture schools within major universities, the young protagonists of this movement, such as Andrea Branzi and Archizoom Associati, developed ideologies shaped by research relating to modes of living and urban life, social issues, and the environment, as well as by a shared desire to affect significant change in the response to consumerism. Archizoom was founded in 1966 as a collective in Florence, credited as the birthplace of Radical design, by the architects Branzi, Gilberto Corretti, Paolo Deganello, and Massimo Morozzi, who were joined by the designers Dario and Lucia Bartolini in 1968. Branzi remarked, “At that time, it was the practice to form groups in which one person dealt with the architecture, one with structure, one with technical systems, one with security. So they were all specialized, whereas we had the idea of a homogenous group, in which what held us together was not specialization, but rather participation in a vision of architecture that was adequate for pop culture’s consumerism.”¹

 

This homogenity was key to the success of Archizoom’s designs and was first codified through the prototype designs they showed alongside their colleagues Superstudio (then only Adolfo Natalini) in the Superarchitettura exhibition at the Galleria Jolly 2 in Pistoia in December 1966. Sergio Camilli, the head of the Florentine furniture firm Poltronova, visited the exhibition and was introduced to the designers. His excitement over the prototype designs led him to establish a partnership with both collectives, resulting in the production of seminal objects that embodied the aesthetics and philosophy of the Radical movement.

 

At the time of the exhibition, American Pop Art reigned supreme among the Italian creative class. The introduction of this movement to Italy was at the 1964 Venice Biennale, and subsequent displays of Pop Art in museum and gallery exhibitions throughout the country provided eye-opening, watershed moments. Many Radical designers realized that they shared the Pop artists’ goal of challenging consumerism through communicative objects and adopted their aesthetic language.

 

Designed in 1967, the textile La Farfalla di Battista is one of Archizoom’s most Pop-related designs. Branzi recalled, “I have no idea how come, but I remember very well the reason why Massimo and I designed the fabric Le Farfalle [sic] (The Butterflies) by Poltronova. . . . The idea was to make decorations with flowers, but crossed with pop decorations, like Liechtenstein’s that imitated printers’ designs, creating (in our intent) a contrast between the floral theme and the ‘pop’ theme. . . . In reality, the result was a lively fabric but not as acid as we expected; the ‘Over-the-Top Generation’ of Archizoom was not yet mature.”² Indeed, the design of La Farfalla di Battista was truly Pop-influenced, down to the use of Roy Lichtenstein’s Ben-Day dots.

 

Poltronova produced the fabric design in two materials for different purposes, using cotton and jute for a bed cover and a lightweight synthetic fiber, easily moved by air currents, for a curtain. La Farfalla di Battista was the only textile that Archizoom ever designed, and Poltronova manufactured it for just a few years. Compared to other textiles that the company produced, it was expensive, retailing for 14,000 lire (approximately US$170 in 2023) in 1971.³ —Cindi Strauss