​Alessandro Mendini was born in Milan in 1931. He graduated from Politecnico of Milano in 1959 with a degree in architecture and worked as a designer with Marcello Nizzoli.

He has been editor of Casabella and Domus and founded the magazines Modo (1977) and Ollo (1988).

In the 1970s he was one of the main personalities of the Radical design movement. He became one of the founding members of the "Global Tools" collective, which was set up in 1973. In 1979 he joined the Studio Alchimia as a partner and there he worked with ​Ettore Sottsass and Michele De Lucchi. In 1982 he co-founded Domus Academy, a private postgraduate design school in Milan.

As architect, he designed several buildings, among these the Alessi residence in Omegna, Italy; the theater complex "Teatrino della Bicchieraia" in the Tuscan city of Arezzo; a memorial tower in Hiroshima, Japan; the Groninger Museum in The Netherlands and the Arosa Casino in Switzerland.

​In 1979 and 1981 he was awarded the Italian Compasso d’Oro of design; in France was made Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres; he is the recipient of an honorary title from the Architectural League of New York and was also awarded an honorary doctorate degree from the Milan Polytechnic.

With his brother Francesco Mendini he opened Atelier Mendini in 1989 which received a Gold Medal for Italian architecture in 2003 from Triennale di Milano for their plan for the metro in Naples and the 2006 Villegiature Awards in Paris for the Byblos Art Hotel in Verona.

Alessando Mendini passed away in 2019 at the age of 87, in his hometown: Milan.