Ettore Sottsass, designer,
born 1917 in Innsbruck, Austria; died 2007 in Milan, Italy
Etorre Sottsass graduated in architecture from Politecnico
in Turin and started his professional career working with
his father, the architect Ettore Sottsass Sr., an important
figure
in Italian rationalism. Soon he rebelled against the
rationalist
doctrine of his father: « When I was young, all we
ever heard about was functionalism, functionalism, functionalism,
» he once said: « It’s not enough. Design should also be
sensual
and exciting.» So in his various roles as artist, architect,
industrial designer, glass maker, publisher and theoretician,
Sottsass devoted his life and work to dismantling the past. In
1957 he became the creative head of Poltronova, and in 1958
he started work with Olivetti as a design consultant where
he worked for more than twenty years and designed numerous
items which now form part of the permanent collections
of museums such as the MoMA in New York, the Centre
George Pompidou in Paris, the Denver Art Museum, etc. He
founded the design groups Alchymia (1979), Sottsass Associati
(1980) and Memphis (1981), which pronounced the end of the
‹International style › and represented postmodernism
and
the
new ‹Anti-Design ›. He became one of the most important
designers of the 20th century. His concepts went against
the representative
possessive character of objects; rather,
Sottsass playfully embodied everyday culture in his designs.
Exhibitions on Sottsass’ life’s work appeared for example at
the Biennale in Venice in 1976, at the Centre Pompidou in
Paris in 1994 and at the Design Museum in London in 2007.
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