Ettore Sottsass (; 14 September 1917 – 31 December 2007) was an Italian

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and

product designer Product design is the process of creating new products for businesses to sell to their customers. It involves the generation and development of ideas through a systematic process that leads to the creation of innovative products. Thus, it is a majo ...

. He was known for his designs of furniture, jewelry, glass, lighting, homeware and office supplies. He also worked on numerous buildings and interiors, often defined by bold colours.

Early life

Sottsass was born in

Innsbruck Innsbruck (; ) is the capital of Tyrol (federal state), Tyrol and the List of cities and towns in Austria, fifth-largest city in Austria. On the Inn (river), River Inn, at its junction with the Wipptal, Wipp Valley, which provides access to the ...

, Austria, and grew up in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

, where his father, also named Ettore Sottsass, was an architect. His father belonged to the modernist architecture group Movimento Italiano per l'Architettura Razionale (MIAR), which was led by

Giuseppe Pagano Giuseppe Pagano (20 August 1896 – 22 April 1945) was an Italian architect, notable for his involvement in the movement of rationalist architecture in Italy up to the end of the Second World War. He designed exhibitions, furniture and interiors ...

. Sottsass attended

Politecnico di Torino The Polytechnic University of Turin (, abbreviated as PoliTO) is the oldest Italian public technical university. The university offers several courses in the fields of Engineering, Architecture, Urban Planning and Industrial Design, and is consi ...

in Turin and graduated in 1939 with a degree in architecture. After the invasion of Italy by the Anglo-Americans, Sottsass joined the Italian

Republican Fascist Party The Republican Fascist Party (, PFR) was a political party in Italy led by Benito Mussolini and the sole representative party of the Italian Social Republic during the German occupation of Italy. The PFR was the successor to the National Fasci ...

and he enlisted in the Monterosa Division of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana which was led by

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

, to fight in the mountains alongside Hitler's army (Sottsass tells his adventures as a Lieutenant of the Monterosa Division in his autobiography ''Scritto di notte'' published by Adelphi). After his time in the military, Sottsass opened his own architecture and design firm in Milan, Italy. Here he started designing furniture and experimented with different color, patterns and shapes. His work was often associated with pop culture with his brightly colored whimsical objects. His pieces were often made out of glass and ceramic.

Early career

After returning home, Ettore Sottsass worked as an architect with his father, often on new modernist versions of buildings that were destroyed during the war. In 1947, living in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, he set up his own architectural and industrial design studio, where he began to create work in a variety of different media: ceramic, painting, sculpture, furniture, photography, jewelry, architecture and interior design. Ettore Sottsass and Fernanda Pivano 1969

Ettore Sottsass and Fernanda Pivano 1969

In 1949, Sottsass was married to

Fernanda Pivano Fernanda Pivano (18 July 1917 – 18 August 2009) was an Italian writer, journalist, translator and critic. Early life Pivano was born in Genoa in 1917. When she was a teenager she moved with her family to Turin where she attended the Massimo ...

, a writer, journalist, translator and critic. From 1954 to 1957 he was a member of the

International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus The International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus was a small European avant-garde artistic tendency that arose out of the breakup of COBRA, and was initiated by contact between former COBRA members Asger Jorn and Enrico Baj and Sergio Dangelo ...

, resigning due to the movement's perceived aggression and its lack of professionalism. In 1956, Sottsass traveled to New York City and began working in the office of George Nelson. He and Pivano traveled widely while working for Nelson, and returned to Italy after a few months. During the same year, Sottsass was commissioned by the American entrepreneur Irving Richards on an exhibition of his ceramics. Back in Italy in 1957, Sottsass joined , a semi-industrial producer of contemporary furniture, as an artistic consultant. Much of the furniture he worked on there influenced the design he would create later with Memphis Milano. In 1956, Sottsass was hired by

Adriano Olivetti Adriano Olivetti (11 April 1901 – 27 February 1960) was an Italian engineer, entrepreneur, politician, and industrialist. He was known worldwide during his lifetime as the Italian manufacturer of Olivetti brand typewriters, calculators, and com ...

as a design consultant for

Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been owned b ...

, to design electronic devices and develop the first Italian

mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

, the Elea 9003 for which he was awarded the

Compasso d'Oro The Compasso d'Oro (; ) is an industrial design award originated in Italy in 1954. Initially sponsored by the La Rinascente, a Milanese department store, the award has been organised and managed by the Associazione per il Disegno Industriale (ADI ...

in 1959. His design for the MC 19 electric adding machine (with ) was awarded the Compasso d'Oro in 1970. At Olivetti, he also designed office equipment, typewriters, and furniture. There Sottsass made his name as a designer who, through colour, form and styling, managed to bring office equipment into the realm of popular culture. His first typewriters, the ''Tekne 3'' and the ''Praxis 48'', were characterized by their sobriety and their angularity. With Perry A. King, Sottsass created the Valentine typewriter in 1969 — considered today a milestone in 20th century design and featured in the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum at the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 Smithsonian Institution museums and one of three Smithsonian facil ...

, London's

Design Museum The Design Museum in Kensington, London, England, exhibits product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design. In 2018, the museum won the European Museum of the Year Award. The museum operates as a registered charity, and all fund ...

as well as the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

. While continuing to design for Olivetti in the 1960s, Sottsass developed a range of objects which were expressions of his personal experiences traveling in the United States and India. These objects included large altar-like ceramic sculptures and his "Superboxes", radical sculptural gestures presented within a context of consumer product, as conceptual statements. Covered in bold and colorful, simulated custom laminates, they were precursors to Memphis, a movement which came more than a decade later. Around this time, Sottsass said: "I didn't want to do any more consumerist products, because it was clear that the consumerist attitude was quite dangerous." As a result, his work from the late 1960s to the 1970s was defined by experimental collaborations with younger designers such as

Superstudio Superstudio was an architectural firm, founded in 1966 in Florence, Italy by Adolfo Natalini and . Gian Piero Frassinelli, Alessandro, and Roberto Magris, Alessandro Poli later joined. History Superstudio was a major part of the Radical period ( ...

and

Archizoom Associati Archizoom Associati was a design studio from Florence, Italy. The founders were Andrea Branzi (architect and designer), Gilberto Corretti (architect and designer), Paolo Deganello (architect and designer) and Massimo Morozzi (architect and designe ...

, and association with the

Radical movement The Radical Movement (, MR), officially the Radical, Social and Liberal Movement (), was a liberal, radical and social-liberal political party in France. The party aimed at being an "alternative to the right–left paradigm". History The R ...

, culminating in the foundation of

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Mem ...

at the turn of the decade. In the early 1970s he designed the modular office equipment collection ''Synthesis 45''. Sottsass and Fernanda Pivano divorced in 1970, and in 1976 Sottsass married Barbara Radice, an art critic and journalist. When Roberto Olivetti succeeded as head of the company, he named Sottsass artistic director and gave him a high salary, but Sottsass refused. Instead he created the Studio Olivetti independent of Olivetti and became instantly the most creative international centre of design associating research with creation and industrial strategy. His concern that his creativity would have been stifled by corporate work is documented in his 1973 essay ''When I was a Very Small Boy''. In 1968, the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

in London granted Sottsass an honorary doctorate.

Memphis Group

With the rise of new groups (Global tools, Archizoom,

, UFO, Zzigurat, 9999) the handmade style appeared suddenly as the new game for experimentation, a lot of these new groups playing in this new/old path to renew creation. In October 1980, Sottsass was confronted with two proposals, one from Renzo Brugola, a dear old friend and carpenter, telling him his will "to make something together like in the good old times," and the other one from Mario and Brunella Godani, owners of the Design Gallery Milano, who asked him to create "new furniture" for their gallery. Ettore Sottsass founded the Memphis Group in Milan on 11 December 1980, after the Bob Dylan song "

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" (also listed as "Memphis Blues Again") is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his seventh studio album, '' Blonde on Blonde'' (1966). The song was written by Dylan and prod ...

" played during the group's inaugural meeting. The group was active from 1981 to 1988. The Memphis group was created in a reaction against the status quo. Sottsass centered the group's thinking around "radical, funny, and outrageous"—essentially, disregarding what was considered in "good taste" at that time. Art deco, the color palette of Pop Art and Kitsch theme from the 1950s inspired their work. Colorful laminate and terrazzo were commonly found in their work and incorporated in floors, tables and lamps. Sottsass also designed his own print. This was a squiggles print also known as Bacterio print. For the print, Sottsass used inspiration from the surface texture and form of a Buddhist temple in Madurai, India, he then abstracted this detail into the squiggles he named Bacterio. This pattern was then used on their furniture designs in as veneers and textiles. The Memphis Group was a postmodern, collaborative, architecture and design group founded by Sottsass in Milan Italy. The group focused heavily on furniture design with an emphasis on unconventional types. The designers became well known for their bright and bold pieces with clashing colors. At the time, furniture was solely meant to be functional. However, the Memphis Group sought to prove otherwise with their highly decorative pieces. They poked fun at everyday pieces and turned them into works of art. Many criticized and said it was just a trend that wouldn't last. Their unconventional ideas were controversial but have now become widely recognized and appreciated. The work continues to be influential throughout the world and can be seen in the Art Institute of Chicago, the Design Museum in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York and many others.

Sottsass Associati

BUSSTOPS Koenigsworther Platz Mitte Hannover Germany 03

As the Memphis movement in the 1980s attracted attention worldwide for its energy and flamboyance, Ettore Sottsass began assembling a major design consultancy, which he named Sottsass Associati. Sottsass Associati was established in 1980 and gave the possibility to build architecture on a substantial scale as well as to design for large international industries. Besides Ettore Sottsass, the other founding members were Aldo Cibic, Marco Marabelli,

Matteo Thun Matteo Thun (full name Mathäus Antonius Maria Graf von Thun and Hohenstein, 17 June 1952 Bolzano, Italy) is an Italian architect and designer. Early life Mathäus Antonius Maria Graf von Thun und Hohenstein was born in Bolzano in 1952. He was t ...

and Marco Zanini. Later, Johanna Grawunder, Marco Susani, James Irvine, and Mike Ryan would also join the firm. In 1985, Sottsass left the Memphis Group to focus on the Associati. Sottsass Associati, primarily an architectural practice, also designed elaborate stores and showrooms for Esprit, identities for Alessi, exhibitions, interiors, consumer electronics in Japan, and furniture of all kinds. The studio was based on the cultural guidance of Ettore Sottsass and the work conducted by its many young associates, who quite often left to open their own studios. Sottsass Associati is now based in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and

and continue to sustain the work, philosophy, and culture of the studio. The studio works with former members of Memphis as well as with the architect Johanna Grawunder. It works for major companies like

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

, Zanotta,

Fiat Fiat Automobiles S.p.A., commonly known as simply Fiat ( , ; ), is an Italian automobile manufacturer. It became a part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2014 and, in 2021, became a subsidiary of Stellantis through its Italian division, Stellant ...

, Alessi, and also realises the interior design of all the retail shops of Esprit (

Esprit Holdings Esprit Holdings Limited ( zh, t=思捷環球控股有限公司) is a global publicly traded retail company incorporated in Bermuda, with headquarters in North Point, Hong Kong, and further major locations in Ratingen, Germany; Amsterdam, Netherl ...

Notable achievements in design

* ''

Olivetti ELEA The Elea was a series of mainframe computers Olivetti developed starting in the late 1950s. The system, made entirely with transistors for high performance, was conceived, designed and developed by a small group of researchers led by Mario Tcho ...

'' mainframe computer. Won

award in 1959 * ''Valentine'' typewriter, Olivetti, 1969 * ''Superbox'' cabinet, Poltronova, 1966 * ''SUMMA 19'' electronic calculator, Olivetti. Won Compasso d'Oro award in 1970 * ''Ultrafragola'' mirror, Poltronova, 1970 * ''Tahiti'' lamp, Memphis, 1981 * ''Murmansk'' fruit bowl, Memphis, 1982 * ''Carlton'' bookcase, Memphis, 1981 * ''Malabar'' bookcase, Memphis, 1981 * ''Casablanca'' cabinet, Memphis, 1981 * ''Enorme'' phone, 1986 * ''Miss don't you like caviar'' chair, 1987 * ''Apollodoro Gallery'', clock on display, seventh event ''The Hour of Architects'', with

Michael Graves Michael Graves (July 9, 1934 – March 12, 2015) was an American architect, designer, and educator, and principal of Michael Graves and Associates and Michael Graves Design Group. He was a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Group and ...

, Hans Hollei,

Arata Isozaki Arata Isozaki (磯崎新, ''Isozaki Arata''; 23 July 1931 – 28 December 2022) was a Japanese architect, urban designer, and theorist from Ōita, Ōita, Ōita. He was awarded the Royal Gold Medal in 1986 and the Pritzker Architecture Prize i ...

Paolo Portoghesi Paolo Portoghesi (2 November 1931 – 30 May 2023) was an Italian architect, theorist, historian, and professor of architecture at the Sapienza University of Rome. He was president of the architectural section of the Venice Biennale (1979–1992) ...

, paintings by

Paolo Salvati Paolo Salvati (born 22 February 1939 in Rome – 24 June 2014 in Rome) was an Italian figurative artist, painter, and draftsman. His landscapes are the expression of poetic art, characterized by an intense chromatic tone as a metaphorical depic ...

, Rome, 1987 * ''Memories of China'' collection, the Gallery Mourmans, 1996 * ''Mandarin'' chair,

Knoll In geography, knoll is another term for a knowe or hillock, a small, low, round natural hill or mound. Knoll may also refer to: Places * Knoll Camp, site of an Iron Age hill fort Hampshire, England, United Kingdom * Knoll Lake, Leonard Canyon, ...

, 1986 * ''Glass works'' for

Venini Venini were a British artrock band, featuring members of Pulp and Ladytron, who were active between the years 1998 and 2001. History Guitarist and violinist Russell Senior left Pulp in 1997 and began writing and demoing songs with vocalist/ly ...

* ''Glass works'' for the CIRVA * ''Nuovo Milano'' – cutlery set designed with assistance of Alberto Gozzi in 1987 for Alessi. Won XVIth Compasso d'Oro award in 1991. * ''Twergi'' collection, Alessi, 1989 and it sold for 60.000.000 * ''Nine-0'' chair for Emeco was Sottsass's final chair design. It was released in 2008, shortly after the designer's death at the age of 90.

Notable achievements in architecture

Fiorucci Fiorucci () is an Italian fashion label founded by Elio Fiorucci in 1967. The first Fiorucci shop exposed Milan to the styles of Swinging London and to American classics, such as the T-shirt and jeans. By the late 1970s, the direction of stylis ...

store, 1980 * Esprit showroom, Düsseldorf, 1985 * Esprit showroom, Zurich, 1985 * Esprit showroom, Hamburg, 1985 * Building, Marina di Massa, 1985 * Alessi showroom, Milan, 1985 * Wolf house, Ridgway (Colorado), 1985 with Johanna Grawunder * Zibibbo bar, Fukuoka, 1989 * Olabuenaga house, Maui, 1989 with Johanna Grawunder * Cei house, Empoli, 1989 * Bischofberger house, Zurich, 1989 with Johanna Grawunder * Museum of Contemporary Art, Ravenne, 1992 * Ghella house, Roma, 1993 * Green house, London, 1993 * Motoryacht Amazon Express, 1994 * Golf and club resort, Zhaoqing, 1994 * Malpensa Airport, Milan, 1994 * Nanon house, Lanaken, 1995 * Van Impe house, Sint-Lievens-Houtem, 1996 with Johanna Grawunder * Alitalia waiting room, 1997 * Bird House, Lanaken, 1998 with Johanna Grawunder * Kelley Residence, Woodside, 2000 * Roppongi Island, Tokyo, 2004 * Sport house, Nanjing, 2004 * Entry Gates of the W. Keith and Janet Kellogg Gallery at the campus of

Cal Poly Pomona California State Polytechnic University Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona) is a public polytechnic research university in Pomona, California, United States. It is the largest of the three polytechnic universities in the California State University syst ...

, 1995

Other works

As an industrial designer, his clients included

, Esprit, the Italian furniture company Poltronova, Knoll International, , Alessi, Brondi, and

Brionvega Brionvega is an Italian electronics company that is known for manufacturing futuristic television sets and audio equipment, its contributions to post-second world war technological and social advancement in Italian economic miracle, Italian in ...

. As an architect, he designed the Mayer-Schwarz Gallery on

Rodeo Drive Rodeo Drive () is a street in Beverly Hills, California, with its southern segment in the City of Los Angeles, known as one of the most expensive streets in the world. Its southern terminus is at Beverwil Drive, and its northern terminus is a ...

Beverly Hills, California Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hills ...

, with its dramatic doorway made of irregular folds and jagged angles, and the home of David M. Kelley, designer of Apple's first computer mouse, in

Woodside, California Woodside is a incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. It has a council–manager system of government. The population of the town was 5,309 at the 2020 census. The town's population ha ...

. The interiors of the

Malpensa Airport Milan Malpensa Airport "Silvio Berlusconi" is an international airport in Ferno, in the Province of Varese, Lombardy, Italy. It is the largest airport in northern Italy, serving Lombardy, Piedmont, and Liguria, as well as the Swiss canton of Ti ...

, in

, were designed by Sottsass in the late 1990s, but he did not architect the building. In the mid-1990s, he designed the sculpture garden and entry gates of the W. Keith and Janet Kellogg Gallery at the campus of

. He collaborated with well-known figures in the architecture and design field, including Aldo Cibic, James Irvine,

. Sottsass created a vast body of work: furniture, jewelry, ceramics, glass, silver work, lighting, office machine design and buildings. He inspired generations of architects and designers. In 2006 the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...

held the first major museum survey exhibition of his work in the United States. A retrospective exhibition, ''Ettore Sottsass: Work in Progress'', was held at the

in London in 2007. In 2009, the Marres Centre for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht presented a re-construction of a Sottsass' exhibition ''Miljö för en ny planet'' 'Landscape for a new planet'' which took place in the

Nationalmuseum Nationalmuseum is the List of national galleries, national gallery of fine arts of Sweden, located on the peninsula Blasieholmen in central Stockholm. The museum's operations stretch far beyond the borders of Blasieholmen, including the Natio ...

in Stockholm in 1969. In 2017, on the occasion of Sottsass' 100th birthday, the

Met Breuer The Met Breuer ( ) was a museum of modern and contemporary art in the Breuer Building at Madison Avenue and East 75th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. It served as a branch museum of the Metropolitan Museum of Art ( ...

museum in New York City presented the retrospective ''Ettore Sottsass: Design Radical.'' One of his works—Telefono Enorme, designed with David M. Kelley for Brondi—is part of the

MOMA The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

Collection, as well as many drawings. Design objects and drawings by Sottsass are also in the permanent collections of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, the

in London, the

Vitra Design Museum The Vitra Design Museum is a privately owned museum for design in Weil am Rhein, Germany. The architect of this building was Frank O. Gehry. His architecture was based on the art movement of the early 20th century, deconstructivism. Making the bu ...

, the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

, the

the Stedelijk Museum The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Musée National d'Art Moderne The Musée National d'Art Moderne (; "National Museum of Modern Art") is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in the 4th arrondissement of Paris and is housed in the Centre Pompidou. In 2021 it ranked 10th in the list of ...

in Paris,

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

, and the

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 5,000 years of history with nearly 80,000 works from six continents. Follo ...

. In 1999, he was awarded the

Sir Misha Black award The Sir Misha Black Awards commemorate the life and contributions of Misha Black to the field of design in the United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Brita ...

and was added to the

College of Medallists The College of Medallists is an association of recipients of The Sir Misha Black Awards, The Sir Misha Black Medal for Distinguished Services in Design Education. Misha Black (1910–1977) was a pioneer of design in United Kingdom, Britain. The ...

. In 2023, his work was included in the exhibition ''Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design at Chatsworth'' at

Chatsworth House Chatsworth House is a stately home in the Derbyshire Dales, north-east of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Chesterfield, England. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has belonged to the House of Cavendish, Cavendish family si ...

Publications

* Guia Sambonet, ''Ettore Sottsass: Movili e Qualche Arredamento (Furniture and A Few Interiors)'', Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1985 * Hans Höger, ''Ettore Sottsass Jun.: Designer, Artist, Architect'', Wasmuth, Tübingen/Berlin, 1993 * Barbara Radice, ''Ettore Sottsass: A Critical Biography'', Thames & Hudson, 1993 * Francois Barre, Andrea Branzi, etc., ''Ettore Sottsass'', Centre G. Pompidou, Paris, 1994 * Fulvio Ferrari, ''Ettore Sottsass: tutta la ceramica'', Allemandi, Turin, 1996 * Bruno Bischofberger, ''Ettore Sottsass: Ceramics'', Chronicle Books, 1996 * M. Carboni (edited by), ''Ettore Sottsass e Associati'', Rizzoli, Milan, 1999 * M. Carboni (edited by), ''Ettore Sottsass: Esercizi di Viaggio'', Aragno, Turin, 2001 * M. Carboni e B. Radice (edited by), ''Ettore Sottsass: Scritti'', Neri Pozza Editore, Milan, 2002 * M. Carboni e B. Radice (edited by), ''Metafore'', Skirà Editore, Milan, 2002 * M. Carboni (edited by), ''Sottsass: fotografie'', Electa, Naples, 2004 * M. Carboni (edited by), ''Sottsass 700 disegni'', Skirà Editore, Milan, 2005 * M. Carboni (edited by), ''Sottsass '60/'70'', Editions HYX, Orléans, France, 2006 * Ronald T. Labaco and Dennis P. Doordan, ''Ettore Sottsass: Architect and Designer'', Los Angeles County Museum of Art/Merrell, London/New York, 2006 * Sally Schöne, ''Ettore Sottsass: auch der Turm von Babel war aus gabrannter Erde (and tower of Babel was also made of terracotta)'', Wienand, 2011 * Philippe Thomé, ''Ettore Sottsass'', Phaidon, New York, 2014 * Barbara Radice, ''Ettore Sottsass: There is a Planet'', catalogue for exhibition at Triennale Design Museum, Electa, 2016 * Francesca Zanella, ''Ettore Sottsass: Catalogo ragionato dell'archivio 1922–1978 CSAC/Università di Parma'', Silvana, Milan, 2017 * Fulvio Ferrari, ''Sottsass: 1000 Ceramics'', AdArte s.r.l., 2017 * Luca Massimo Barbero, Pasquale Gagliardi, Marino Barovier, etc., ''Ettore Sottsass: The Glass'', Skira/Rizzoli, Milan, 2017 * Gean Moreno, ''Ettore Sottsass and the Social Factory'', Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, 2020

Popular culture

Alex Alex is a given name. Similar names are Alexander, Alexandra, Alexey or Alexis. People Multiple * Alex Brown (disambiguation), multiple people * Alex Cook (disambiguation), multiple people * Alex Forsyth (disambiguation), multiple people * Al ...

, the lead character in Stanley Kubrick's film, ''

A Clockwork Orange ''A Clockwork Orange'' may refer to: * ''A Clockwork Orange'' (novel), a 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess ** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (film), a 1971 film directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel *** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (soundtrack), the film ...

'' uses an

Olivetti Valentine The Olivetti Valentine is a portable, manual typewriter manufactured and marketed by the Italian company, Olivetti, that combined the company's Olivetti Lettera 32, Lettera 32 internal typewriter mechanicals with signature red, glossy plastic bo ...

. The design also appeared in the 2007

André Téchiné André Téchiné (; born 13 March 1943) is a French screenwriter and film director. He has a long and distinguished career that places him among the most accomplished post-French New Wave, New Wave French film directors. Téchiné belongs to a s ...

film ''

The Witnesses ''The Witnesses'' () is a 2007 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, starring Michel Blanc, Sami Bouajila, Emmanuelle Béart and Johan Libéreau. The film, set in Paris in 1984, explores the lives of a closely knit group of friends w ...

''. In 2016,

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, pa ...

's Valentine sold at a Sotheby's auction in London for £45,000, against a presale estimate of £300–£500.

References

External links

Sottsass Associati

Sottsass design collection and other Memphis design

''A conversation with designer Ettore Sottsass''
television interview with Charlie Rose, 29 November 2004, video.
Ettore Sottsass. Existential Design
published by Hans Höger in domusWeb, Milan 2005.

Jennifer Kabat on Ettore Sottsass

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20110722032901/http://www.domusweb.it/magazine/article.cfm?id=35196&lingua=_eng Hans Höger on Ettore Sottsass: Existential Design DomusWeb, April 2005.
Olivetti official site

Obituary in ''The Times'', 2 January 2008

Design Museum Collection

Cooper Hewitt Collection

Information and pictures about the designer Ettore Sottsass Junior
at the design agency TAGWERC {{DEFAULTSORT:Sottsass, Ettore 1917 births 2007 deaths Architects from Turin Italian industrial designers Italian furniture designers Italian people of Austrian descent Olivetti people Compasso d'Oro Award recipients Royal Designers for Industry Product designers Lighting Polytechnic University of Turin alumni