INNSBRUCK (AUSTRIA) 1917 – MILANO 2007
Ettore Sottsass was a grandee of late 20th century Italian design Best known as the founder of the early 1980s Memphis collective, he also designed iconic electronic products for Olivetti, as well as beautiful glass and ceramics Wherever he went, Ettore Sottsass carried a camera to photograph anything that caught his eye Doors, temples, kitchens, billboards: nothing escaped him Ettore Sottsass devoted his life and work to dismantling the past in his various roles as artist, architect, industrial designer, glass maker, publisher, theoretician and ceramicist The past to him was the rationalist doctrine of his father, Ettore Sottsass Sr…
, a prominent Italian architect For him design should also be sensual and exciting, not just functional Born in Innsbruck in his mother’s native Austria in 1917, Ettore Jr was marked out as an architect from an early age His parents moved to Turin in 1929 because it boasted the best architecture faculty in Italy and Ettore Sr wanted his son to study there Although he also loved painting, Ettore Jr acquiesced to his father’s wishes and gained an architecture degree in 1939 No sooner had he graduated than he was called up into the Italian army only to spend most of World War II in a Yugoslavian concentration camp After the war, he worked on housing projects with his father before moving to Milan in 1946 to curate a craft exhibition at the Triennale For the next decade, Sottsass continued to curate as well as pursuing his passion for painting, writing for Domus, the art and architectural magazine, designing stage sets and founding a practice as an architect and industrial designer In 1956, Sottsass and his first wife, Fernanda Pivano, travelled to New York He was commissioned to create a line of ceramics during this visit, but was also inspired to concentrate on industrial design, rather than architecture, after spending a month working in the studio of the US designer, George Nelson Back in Italy, Sottsass agreed to become a creative consultant to Polotronova, a furniture factory near Florence In 1958 he accepted a more demanding consultancy role for the newly created electronics division of Olivetti, the Italian industrial group Sottsass was hired by Adriano Olivetti, the founder, to work alongside his son, Roberto Together with the engineer, Mario Tchou, they created a series of landmark products which were technically innovative and aesthetically appealing thanks to Sottsass’ love of pop art and Beat culture They won the prestigious 1959 Compasso d’Oro with the Elea 9003, the first Italian calculator, and revolutionised typewriter design with Olivetti’s first electronic model, the Tekne, in an elegantly angular Sottsass case Throughout the 1960s, Sottsass travelled in the US and India while remaining a central figure in the Italian avant garde and designing more landmark products for Olivetti culminating in the bright red, poppy plastic 1970 Valentine typewriter This is considered as an iconic ‘pop’ product His furniture was influential: notably the mid-1960s superbox closets in stripey plastic laminate developed for Polotronova In 1972, Sottsass’ mobile, multi-functional fibreglass furniture unit was the toast of the Italy: The New Domestic Landscape exhibition at MoMA, New York By the late 1970s, Sottsass was working with Studio Alchymia, a group of avant garde furniture designers including Alessandro Mendini and Andrea Branzi, on an exhibition at the 1978 Milan Furniture Fair Two years later, Sottsass, then in his 60s, split with Mendini to form a new collective, Memphis, with Branzi and other 20-something collaborators including Michele De Lucchi, George Sowden, Matteo Thun and Nathalie du Pasquier Memphis embodied the themes with which Sottsass had been experimenting since his mid-1960s ‘superboxes’: bright colours, kitsch suburban motifs and cheap materials like plastic laminates But this time they captured the attention of the mass media as well as the design cognoscenti, and Memphis billed as the future of design For the young designers of the era, it was an intellectual lightning rod which liberated them from the dry rationalism they had been taught at college and enabled them to adopt a more fluid, conceptual approach to design The Memphis collective’s work was exhibited all over the world, until Sottsass quit in early 1985 He then concentrated on Sottsass Associati, the architecture and design group where he worked with former Memphis members and younger collaborators, including industrial designer James Irvine and architect Johanna Grawunder Sottsass returned to architecture in 1985 when commissioned to design a chain of shops for Esprit He completed a series of private houses – including one in Palo Alto for industrial designer, David Kelley – and public buildings, notably Malpensa 2000 airport near Milan Sottsass Associati has also worked for Apple, NTT, Philips and Siemens, while Sottsass himself continued with his artisanal projects in glass and ceramics Revered in Italy as a doyen of late 20th century design, Ettore Sottsass is also cited as a role model by young foreign designers, such as Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, for the breadth – as well as the quality – of his work
