Superstudio - Design New York Thursday, June 12, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Private Collection, Italy

  • Literature

    Andrea Branzi,  The Hot House: Italian New Wave Design, Cambridge, 1984, p. 76

  • Catalogue Essay

    Radical Architecture, a term adopted from American radical culture, was the rallying cry of Italian visionary designers searching for a critical utopia – the most subversive and radical being Superstudio and Archizoom Associati. 
     
    Superstudio’s provocative vision of the future is illustrated in films and projects, such as Fundamental Acts, 1971-1973, in which the group did research work based on the relationship between architecture and human life.  This project involved five films “Life,” “Education,” “Ceremony,” “Love” and “Death.”  “Superstudio chose to use a literary idiom of slightly enigmatic nature to illustrate the extreme consequences of the contradictions and illogicalness of the bourgeois  metropolis” (Branzi, The Hot House: Italian New Wave Design, p. 65).
     
    While Archizoom Associati created the environment entitled “Safari,” Superstudio created the “Bazaar.”  The titles of these seating environments blur the line between interior design and architecture.  With names that seemingly do not represent the objects they describe, exotic markets and big game expeditions, they challenge people’s behavior and use of interior space.

222

Rare “Bazaar” seating environment

designed 1968
Coated fiberglass, fabric.
Each shell: 58 1/4 x 36 x 36 in. (148 x 91.4 x 91.4 cm); total environment: 58 1/4 x 130 1/4 x 75 in. (148 x 330.8 x 190.5 cm)
Manufactured by Giovanetti, Italy in a very limited series.  Three sections with paper label “BAZAAR/DESIGN SUPERSTUDIO / PRODUZIONE GIOVANETTI.”  Comprising five sections (5).

Estimate
$50,000 - 70,000 

Sold for $43,000

Design

12 June 2008, 2pm
New York