Born in 1954, he completed his master’s degree at the University of Tokyo in 1979. After studying at Columbia University as Visiting Scholar, he established Kengo Kuma & Associates 1990. In 2009, he was installed as Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Tokyo.

Among Kuma’s major works are Kirosan Observatory (1995), Water/Glass (1995, received AIA Benedictus Award), Stage in Forest, Noh Stage in the Forest (received 1997 Architectural Institute of Japan Annual Award), Bato-machi Hiroshige Museum (received The Murano Prize). His recent works include Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum (2010), Asakusa Culture and Tourism Center (2012), Nagaoka City Hall Aore (2012) and Ginza Kabukiza (2013).

Kuma is also a prolific writer, including Anti-Object, translated into English. Most of his latest titles have been published in English, Chinese and Korean and have won wide readership from around the world.

Sofia Lagerkvist and Anna Lindgren are the members of the Swedish design group Front. Their works are based on common discussions, explorations and experiments and they are all involved in the projects from initial ideas to the final product. Front’s design objects often communicate a story to the observer about the design process, about the material it is made of or about conventions within the design field. In their work they have assigned part of the making of design to animals, computers or machines. They have made a constantly changing interior, created objects with explosions, robotic furniture and a range of furniture inspired by their fascination with magic.

Founded in 1983 in Sao Paulo by brothers Fernando (born 1961) and Humberto (born 1953) Campana, Estudio Campana became famous for its furniture design and the creation of intriguing objects such as the Vermelha and Favela chairs and has grown to include Interior Design, Architecture, Landscaping, Scenography, Fashion, Artistic Partnerships and more.

The Campanas work incorporates the idea of transformation, reinvention and the integration of craftsmanship in mass production. Giving preciousness to common materials carries not only the creativity in their design but also their very Brazilian characteristics—the colours, the mixtures, the creative chaos, the triumph of simple solutions.

Companies such as Alessi, Artecnica, Baccarat, Bernardaud, Consentino, Corsi Design, Edra, Fendi, Grendene, H. Stern, Lacoste, Louis Vuitton, Moleskine, Nodus, Skitsch, Trousseau, Venini and others produce the ideas created by the team at the studio, which also signs its own line of limited numbered editions and unique pieces often crafted in partnership with artisan communities and NGOs.

Born in Innsbruck, Austria, in 1917, Ettore Sottsass received his degree in architecture from the Turin Polytechnic in 1939. In 1947 he opened his own architecture and design office in Milan.

His collaboration with Olivetti began in 1958 and lasted for over thirty years, during which he received three Compasso d’Oro design awards. Among the items he designed for Olivetti are: “Elea”, the first Italian electronic calculator, in 1959; “Tekne 3”, “Praxis 48”, the red portable typewriter “Valentina” and “Sistema 45”.

All throughout the ‘60s and early ‘70s, Sottsass’s work explored the themes that would stand central to his designs in the years to come: it was during this period that he laid the foundations for what would later be called Nuovo Design. In the second half of the ‘60s, Sottsass starts Pianeta Fresco, magazine co-edited with Allen Ginsberg and Fernanda Pivano and he is involved in the first debates on Radical Architecture, followed, at the beginning of the ‘70s, by several conceptual counter-design works.

In 1980 he founded Sottsass Associati Studio and Memphis.

In 1981 the first Memphis exhibition opens in Milan (shows will follow until 1987). Memphis, gathering internationally known architects and desingers, quickly became the symbol of Nuovo Design and point of reference for all contemporary avant-garde directions.

His works are in the permanent collections of a wide range of museums: Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; MOMA, New York; Metropolitan Museum, New York; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Montreal; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; National Museum, Stockholm.

Alessandro Mendini (1931–2019) was born in Milan to an artistic family. After taking his degree in architecture at the Milan Polytechnic, his direct influences were Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Marcello Nizzoli and Gio Ponti. Interested in writing and theorising in addition to drawing, he successively directed the magazines Casabella (1970–1976), Modo (1977–1981) and Domus (1980–1985 and 2010–2011). He published the books Paesaggio casalingo (1978), Architettura addio (1981), Progetto infelice (1983), Scritti (2004) and Scritti di domenica (2016). As the editor of design magazines, Mendini established himself as the voice of eclectic, incoherent architecture, which he considered a marvellous device for the mixing of styles and visual languages both contemporary and historical, looking both to art and mass production.

In the 1970s he became an exponent of the turning point toward postmodern design. He defended the concepts of banal and kitsch, using them as secret weapons to disperse the boringness of functionalistic and serious architecture. From 1979 to 1991, he gave existence to Alchimia, one of the best-known radical-design groups, whose principle was the hybridisation of the arts.

Stine Gam, Danish architect with a master in furniture design. Enrico Fratesi Italian architect graduated with a master in industrial design. Gam and Fratesi gained experience as architects in several architecture studios in Japan and Scandinavia before establishing their own design studio based in Copenhagen.
GamFratesi’s design takes its creative drive from a fusion of tradition and renewal and in an experimental approach to their chosen materials and techniques. With their dual traditional background, Stine Gam and Enrico Fratesi draw on the classic Danish furniture and craft tradition as well as the classic Italian intellectual and conceptual approach.