Strength of Purpose

Form follows function for famed Italian designer Enzo Mari

One indication of a designer's greatness is that he or she is admired and respected not only by peers, but also by designers and manufacturers of succeeding generations. This is certainly the case with Italy's Enzo Mari who, now in his early 70s, is still a designer in demand.
Mari debuted as a designer in the 1960s, when he created a series of quietly provocative products for Milan-based home and office accessories manufacturer Danese. The self-taught Mari would soon move on to furniture and lighting design before briefly falling out of favour, thanks to the colour and excess of the Memphis movement-inspired design scene of the 1980s. Sensationalist forms have never played a large role in Mari's work, which he describes as "rational design," an approach "elaborated or constructed in a way that corresponds entirely to the purpose or function" of a design.
The veteran designer has recently collaborated with two like-minded clients. Muji is a Japanese company that designs, manufactures and retails popular lines of utilitarian goods for daily living. Their low-key and low-cost approach dovetails nicely with Mari's minimalist ways. He designed two tables for Muji; one is all wood and the other features a glass top on a metal frame. Both exhibit Mari's dedication to an object's functionality. The designer also created two new chairs for the Japanese design company, and while one is relatively straight-forward, the other commands some attention for a seat and frame made of a single piece of bent plywood.
When Italian furniture company Poltrona Frau purchased the legendary Thonet brand of Vienna in 2001, Mari was handed the challenge of creating a new Thonet series which would both honour the brand's past and ensure continuing relevance. (In the mid 19th century, Viennese furniture manufacturer Michael Thonet introduced mass production to the industry with his line of steam-bent wood furniture.) Mari responded with a chair available in three versions - stacking, dining and rocking. The aluminum chair frame is designed with a varying thickness to provide needed strength at key points while retaining a visual lightness. In a material reprise of the Muji project, the Thonet seat and backrest are combined in one bent wood shell. New Thonet tables by Mari include a glass surface resting on a wood base and a marble top supported by a bent iron ring and four thick wood legs. Like much of the designer's work, they are understated and precise.
"If a form is the only possible form, then the object is. If the form 'seems,' then the wrong path has been taken," Mari says. Legend has it that this very thoughtful designer - an accomplished teacher as well - once spent the better part of a year contemplating the design of an ashtray. Colleagues loved the resulting design, but it was a commercial flop and Mari's only reward was a two-pack-a-day cigarette habit. The details of this episode may have been exaggerated, but few question Enzo Mari's career-long quest to create considered and useful designs.

Publication Date: 2004-08-08
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=4246