Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007) is one of the key figures in the history of Italian design. Artist, designer and architect, he is considered one of the founding fathers of Radical Design and has had an incalculable influence on the development of the discipline. Born in Austria to a family of Trentino-Tyrolean origins (his father, Ettore Sottsass Senior, was a famous architect), he grew up and graduated in Turin and then opened his own studio in Milan. However, Sottsass considered himself a citizen of the world and traveled extensively: from New York, where he worked in George Nelson's studio, to India, visited with his wife Fernanda Pivano, another great protagonist of the cultural debate of the time, the greatest expert in American literature in all Italy. It was this great set of stimuli and influences that allowed him to develop a revolutionary style, dominated by bright colors and extreme shapes, in complete contrast with the functionalist dictates of post-war industrial design. Expressed through the artistic direction of the Tuscan brand Poltronova and the foundation of the Memphis group, a veritable hotbed of talents that would set the tone for the whole style of Italian design of the 1980s. However, Sottsass was not only a breakthrough figure, but also an impeccable professional: with his creations for Olivetti he was the protagonist of an avant-garde technological enterprise in the 1960s, while with his studio Sottsass Associati he signed products that entered the catalogs of brands such as Artemide, Alessi, Venini, Zanotta, Glas Italia, Kartell and many others.