Ettore sottsass biography of albert

2017 has been the year of Ettore Sottsass. The date marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of this seminal figure.

Unlike other great Italian designers of the 20th century–the Castiglioni brothers, Vico Magistretti, Enzo Mari, Marco Zanuso–Sottsass ranged far afield, making a significant mark not only as an architect (he always described himself as one) but also as a photographer, sculptor and artist.

Ettore sottsass biography of albert

He eschewed the dictates of modernism completely, inventing his own vocabulary. Some have called him the anti-designer, because throughout his six-decade career he strove to liberate the discipline from the formal strictures of the modern canon.

Sottsass was the driving force behind Memphis—the design movement of the 1980’s that thumbed its collective nose at the reigning International Style. While short-lived, its ideas forever changed the design direction of the following decades and still lives with