There is a good chance that you have been hearing a lot about Ettore Sottsass – the revolutionary, incendiary and boundlessly creative postmodern Italian designer and architect. If you are in the design world, you may say that the Sottsass renaissance is already starting to recede – from the flood of interest that came after his death in 2007. For others, you may be curious: who is Ettore Sottsass and why is everyone talking about him? If you don’t know his name, you may be seeing a lot of his designs: on social media, a peculiar lamp on someone’s desk, or an alien-like bookshelf in a friend’s home. What is there to know about Sottsass? The most important thing to know is that he was a complete anomaly – a planet on its own bizarre axis. His limitless exuberance was a breath of fresh air compared to the stodgy, boring design of the 1970s and 80s, and his referential palate extended to American Jazz, beat poetry, and 1940s Indian architecture. Indeed, Sottsass got his start revolutionizing mundane, everyday utilitarian objects and machinery, from typewriters to corkscrews. However, it was his founding of the Memphis Group and his subsequent furniture designs that earned his praise and vitriol. Love him or hate him, Sottsass’s designs will be forever iconic of his singular vision of reinterpretation and creative anarchy. Click here to read ten things about Ettore Sottsass.
