ETTORE SOTTSASS

Early Years

Sottsass was born in Innsbruck, Austria. He was exposed to art and design at a young age, influenced by his father who was an architect. Sottsass grew up in Turin, Italy and graduated from the city’s Polytechnic University in 1939.

After serving in the military during World War II, Sottsass spent time in his father’s studio helping to reconstruct buildings lost during the war. He then relocated to Milan and opened his own design and architecture firm, focusing on ceramic, painting, and interior design.

Sottsass’ early practice was involved with the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, a brief avantgarde movement (1954–1957) that reacted to the Bauhaus-influenced design movement in Germany, which the Imaginist Bauhaus thought excluded ‘free artists’.

In 1958, Sottsass was commissioned by Italian engineer and entrepreneur Adriano Olivetti as a design consultant for his typewriters. Sottsass’ consultancy on the design of Italy’s first mainframe computer, developed by Olivetti, garnered Sottsass the prestigious Compasso d’Oro prize in 1959. He then went on to design more furniture, equipment, and typewriters for the firm. Sottsass’ bright red typewriter Valentine (1969) is perhaps the most notable, as it became an important accessory and statement in Italian society.

Ettore Sottsass Artwork

Memphis Group

Ettore Sottsass is credited as the founder of the Memphis Group, a collective of designers inspired by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan’s records, the ancient capital of Egypt, and the contemporary city in Tennessee.

Memphis debuted in 1981 at Milan’s Salone del Mobile. This group, involving other European designers such as Michele de Lucchi, George Sowden, and Nathalie du Pasquier, was driven by an ethos to challenge academic and traditional design principles by employing a vibrant use of colour, patterns, forms, and cheap materials.

During this time, Sottsass designed his Carlton (1981) bookcase, a playful shelf constructed from brightly coloured laminates. Contrary to the functionalist and modular approach of design at the time, this bookcase played with angles and shapes that allowed for books to lean tilted among its shelves. Sottsass also created a floor lamp, Treetops (1981), that experimented with geometric shapes and contours. He also designed glass vases and explored different fluid forms and silhouettes.

Sottsass Associati

Sottsass set up a design consultancy called Sottsass Associati in 1980. Primarily working as an architecture firm, they designed private homes and public buildings such as Milan Malpensa Airport in 2000. Sottsass Associati has also developed interior design furnishings such as chairs and sinks, the design identity of Alessi, a elaborate showrooms for brands such as Esprit. The firm is based in both Milan and London.

Exhibitions

Ettore Sottsass has held major retrospective exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Design Museum in London. His work has been collected by institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy.

Editorial

Articles on Ettore Sottsass can be found in The Art Newspaper, and in The Guardian, amongst other publications.

Arianna Mercado | Ocula | 2022