PACIFIC

Pacific is an enigmatic piece: a storage cabinet, or a work of architecture? Perhaps it is both. With the anarchic and irreverent character typical of Memphis, De Lucchi simultaneously asserts and denies the true function of Pacific, as if to leave the final verdict up to the observer.

Created in 1981 by Michele De Lucchi, Pacific is a wardrobe with two doors. It dominates space with its height of two meters. The laminated wood with a decorative white and black pattern, and the yellow zigzag handles in heat-coated steel tubing, contribute to make this object an icon of Memphis design.

Pacific was made and exhibited for the first Memphis exhibition held in 1981 at the Arc ’74 showroom. The impact on the audience was surprising: “Ettore was a driving force, and if you didn’t want to be left behind you had to always show him something astonishing. Which wasn’t easy,” De Lucchi has said.

Michele De Lucchi is an Italian designer and architect. In 1975, he graduated in Architecture from the University of Florence, where from 1975 to 1977 he worked as an assistant to Adolfo Natalini, founder of Superstudio. Between the late 1970s and the 1980s, he was a leading figure in Radical Architecture and participated in the most important Italian design movements of the time. He was a co-founder of Memphis, with which he collaborated from 1981 to 1987. De Lucchi's numerous award-winning projects are created in collaboration with renowned Italian and international furniture brands. In 1990, he founded Produzione Privata with the aim of combining an experimental approach with traditional artisanal techniques and processes. He has curated numerous art and design exhibitions and designed museum buildings such as the Triennale di Milano, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, and the Neues Museum in Berlin.

W 150, D 70, H 200 cm; 280 Kg