Edited by Christoph Radl, 2025
BOOK
Peter Shire’s Grand Tour: A Snapshot of Design History, 1980–1989 is a visual and personal journey through one of the most influential decades in Italian design, told by Peter Shire, one of the Memphis movement’s members.
Published by Apartamento and edited by Christoph Radl, the book gathers a selection of Shire’s snapshots taken during his time in Italy, across Milan, Florence, and Venice. With the curious eye of someone unaware they were witnessing history, Shire captured the birth of a movement that shifted the course of postmodern design discourse.
Unstaged and grainy, these images convey the spirit of a moment when everything felt possible: lunches at Bar Jamaica, the installations of the first Memphis show, glimpses of cities, and familiar faces.Each photograph is accompanied by short texts written by Shire, adding tone and context with a mix of irony and nostalgia.
He recalls his obsession with gelato paciugo and the feeling of drifting through days shaped more by chance than by plans. It’s an imprecise and beautiful visual diary, where memory meets the texture of daily life.
With the graphic sensibility of Radl, a longtime friend and collaborator, the book becomes a collective narrative of a time lived without knowing it would one day be called historic. There’s no intent to glorify, only a wish to preserve an honest view of an unrepeatable era.
Peter Shire
Born in Los Angeles in 1947, Peter Shire is a key figure of postmodern design, known for his ironic and deeply unconventional approach.
Trained at the Chouinard Art Institute, he has consistently rejected the definitions of contemporary art, moving freely between ceramics, furniture, sculpture, toys, and installations, resisting labels and hierarchies across disciplines.
His aesthetic draws on Bauhaus, Futurism, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco, aligning naturally with the spirit of the Memphis collective, where he worked alongside Ettore Sottsass and other members.
Shire’s work has been exhibited internationally, from Los Angeles to Tokyo, and is held in major public collections.
Why the book is interesting
Presented by Apartamento Publishers during Milan Design Week 2025, Peter Shire’s Grand Tour offers a rare glimpse of the Memphis group in their most personal and unguarded moments, before anyone imagined they would become the most influential design group of the 1980s.
The book’s photographs, paired with Shire’s captions and brief reflections, open a window onto a distant world that feels vividly present. This group of young designers and artists led a life made of everyday joys: lunches, dinners, sunset snapshots, and plenty of gelato.
Long before their influence on design history became clear, an influence that still resonates today, these friends were simply working, thinking, and living between Milan, Florence, and Venice. Through a series of snapshots, the book captures Shire and the Memphis group in a way we’ve never quite seen before: spontaneous, honest and unfiltered.
Kepp Reading
Details
Aparatamento Publishers
Availble online on Apartamento.com
Hardcover, 420 pages
978-84-09-70486-6
