User:Jahsonic/I remember Sottsass's Superboxes
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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I remember quite clearly driving to Paris in 1994 and seeing for the first time the 'Superboxes'[1][2] by Ettore Sottsass on the occasion of his retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou.
I seem to remember ... I'm not sure if this actually happened ... but it now seems that somewhere along the Boulevard Périphérique we entered a tunnel which took us all the way to the underground parking below the Centre Georges Pompidou. I like to drive in tunnels and it felt like I had lucked to find a secret passage to the belly of the Parisian temple of postmodernity.
In 1966, the 'Superboxes' ... monolithic wardrobes or closets ... were at the same time extremely minimalistic, seemingly a tribute to the "less is more" credo of high modernism; yet very maximalist: the colours and the laminate of these box-shaped wardrobes foreshadowed postmodernism.
In retrospect, the prefix super- in 'superbox' was very popular in Italian design, see superarchitettura and Superstudio. But even outside Italy and outside of design, super was a popular prefix. There were supermarkets, there was 'super' leaded fuel, you had the Lee Perry Super Ape album and the Superfly film in entertainment.
See: "I Remember"
