ENZO MARI Edition

Design transfer: Enzo Mari and “Autoprogettazione?”

In 1974, the Italian designer Enzo Mari published 19 furniture designs that one could make by oneself in his book ‘Autoprogettazione?’, thereby creating a milestone in the history of design. As an alternative to Formalism and intended as a democratisation of design, with the ‘Autoprogettazione’ programme Enzo Mari created a provocative counter-proposal to the capitalist paradigm of mass consumption. Build furniture yourself, as you need it. That was the idea. Forty years later, he granted the CUCULA team rights to use, recreate, and develop the designs. In the CUCULA workshop, Enzo Mari’s ideas met those of young refugees, who set about creating new perspectives from their own backgrounds.

Enzo Mari’s designs made it possible to produce high quality, durable and beautiful furniture across language barriers with simple tools and little experience in woodworking methods. In this way, the design classics met with the stories of their makers and a process of learning and reflection came into being. Here, the design was directly related to sustainability and social responsibility, and it proved to be performative: shifting itself according to stories and forming a new identity.

The trainees’ work pieces were all based on the furniture designs of the series “Autoprogettazione?” by Enzo Mari.

 

The classics

 

The Ambassador

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