Ettore Sottsass

Lifetime

1917–2007

Country

Italy

Ettore Sottsass was born on 14 September 1917 in Innsbruck and died on 31 December 2007 in Milan. In 1939, he graduated in architecture from Politecnico di Torino, and from 1945 he ran his own studio in Milan. From 1958 to 1980, he was a consultant to Olivetti, for which he designed, among other things, the Elea 9003 (1959), the Valentine model (1969, with Perry A. King) and the Summa 19 calculator (1970).

The Superbox cabinet (1966) and Ultrafragola mirror (1970) were created for Poltronova. In 1980, Sottsass co-founded the Memphis group – together with, among others, Branzi, Alessandro Mendini, Bedin and De Lucchi. The Carlton bookcase, Tahiti lamp and Casablanca come from the 1981 Memphis collection. He left the group in 1985, continuing his work at Sottsass Associati. Cooper Hewitt describes him as the founder of postmodernism in design.

He received the Compasso d'Oro in 1959 (Elea 9003), 1970 (Summa 19) and 1991 (Nuovo Milano cutlery for Alessi), as well as the Sir Misha Black Medal in 1999. Retrospectives of his work were held at LACMA (2006) and the Design Museum in London (2007). Sottsass's work is held, among others, in the collections of MoMA, Cooper Hewitt, V&A, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Stedelijk Museum, Vitra Design Museum and Centre Pompidou.