Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sottsass was an Italian architect and designer whose practice encompassed furniture, jewellery, glassware, lighting, domestic and office objects, as well as numerous architectural and interior projects.

He grew up in Turin and graduated in Architecture from the Politecnico di Torino in 1939. In 1947, he founded his architecture and industrial design studio in Milan, where he began exploring a wide range of creative media.

In 1956, Sottsass moved to New York and worked at George Nelson’s design studio. After returning to Italy, he established significant collaborations with Poltronova (1957) and Olivetti (1958). From the late 1960s throughout the 1970s, he collaborated with Superstudio and Archizoom Associati as part of the Radical Design movement, before co-founding the Memphis Group in 1981.

In the mid-1980s, through Sottsass Associati—primarily an architecture and design practice—he created a wide range of projects including retail spaces, showrooms, corporate identities, exhibitions, interiors, Japanese consumer electronics, and furniture.

Ettore Sottsass received numerous international awards, including the ADI Compasso d’Oro in 1959. His works are held in the permanent collections of major museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.