Marco Sammicheli tells us about “Ettore Sottsass. La parola.”

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ettore sottsass, la parola, triennale, salone milano

Ettore Sottsass. La Parola, Triennale Milano. Photo Gianluca Di Ioia

Marco Sammicheli, Director of the Italian Design Museum at the Milan Triennale, tells us about the third phase of the exhibition devoted to the great designer and architect, “Ettore Sottsass. La parola.”, curated together with Barbara Radice and Iskra Grisogono of Studio Sottsass, with art direction by Christoph Radl

“A friend pointed out to me that we’re used to seeing and reading Ettore Sottsass, but never to seeing and reading Sottsass together. The purpose of the new project is not to separate the two aspects. For him, writing accompanied by visual art is a complementary action which expresses the desire to recount an urgency and be understood.”

The speaker is Marco Sammicheli, Director of the Museum of Italian Design at the Triennale Milano. He is the curator of the exhibition Ettore Sottsass. La Parola, together with Barbara Radice and Iskra Grisogono of Studio Sottsass, with art direction by Christoph Radl. After Structure and Color (3 December 2021 – 12 June 2022) and Calculation (15 July 2022 – 8 January 2023), the third saga in the exhibition cycle devoted to Ettore Sottsass focuses on the multiple use of words in the great architect and designer’s output. A path of research that aims both to keep his memory alive and to study it through the constant dialogue with Studio Sottsass.

ettore sottsass, exhibition, triennale, salone milano — Ettore Sottsass. La Parola, Triennale Milano. Photo Gianluca Di Ioia

The exhibition is laid out around the permanent installation of Casa Lana, the interior of the private residence that Ettore Sottsass designed in the seventies for Giovanni Lana, lithographer and printer, faithfully reconstructed and accessible to the public thanks to the donation by Barbara Radice Sottsass. A place that aims to highlight innovative aspects of Ettore Sottsass’s work and thought.

The word-fresco is the theme of the third stage: an anthology of Sottsass's writings in their various forms. An attempt to represent the essence of a literary vein, in which the frequency and variety of the writings offer the public an original view of Sottsass. His writing, almost always in capital letters, communicates a spirit of sharing, it expresses the urgency to be understood and instill a doubt.

“The exhibition design embodies an intuition of Christoph Radl with Barbara Radice and Iskra Grisogono. We identified the Kalligraphy among the works to be exhibited: a collection, which over time, from drawings had become a collection of ceramics for the Galerie Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich in1995 and 96. Signs that go to the root of gesture, associated with wall paintings, graffiti, tattoos and ideograms. In this way Radl imagined a leap of scale, reproducing these calligraphies whole along the whole outer wall of the Sottsass room. The same mechanism was then repeated with the other works on display, reproduced with a leap in scale,” explains the curator.

sottsass, exhibition, triennale, salone milano — Ettore Sottsass. La Parola, Triennale Milano. Photo Gianluca Di Ioia

The original drawings were then framed and hung on the wall flanked by blow-ups. “We wanted to stir the public’s interest, because what we show is an extremely private and little-known side of Sottsass,” Marco continues. The poetic and personal work “In the Name of Love” (1966) is singular, containing elements of the North American culture of political and intimate graffiti. But there are also “Something red and yellowish”, “Dark Matter”, “White Flag” and “Bowl with Lentil Soup”: pieces conveying an image, a sensation, an emotion.

They are all works from different periods, the 60s, 90s and 2007. A feature that recurs in the installations in Casa Lana, where different periods and formats emerge to convey the idea that Sottsass's research has been constant throughout his career.

At the heart of his works there are universal themes: death, life, poetry and the promiscuity of bodies. “He speaks in transversal ways, passing from the culture of objects to that of spaces and literature. In addition to being a skilled communicator and popularizer, he was always a refined writer. Prose like his, crystalline and captivating, is rarely found in the writings of other planners and designers,” observes Marco.

sottsass, triennale, salone milano — Miljö för en ny planet, National Museum Stockholm, 1969, Courtesy Studio Ettore Sottsass

His texts are never captions, because in addition to information they add value, they narrate the atmosphere that favored the drawing.

This selection of works, coming from the rich and highly organized Studio Sottsass archive, is often guided by the urge to bring to light lesser-known stories. “Every time I visit the archive, I’m struck by his ability to include others and leave no one behind, while remaining true to himself. His messages are always memories that include the reader, the visitor, the user, the passer-by,” Marco tells us.

Sottsass's works reveal the extreme generosity of his achievement. Those who worked with him or simply met him survive his legacy. This makes his work timeless and a source of stimulus for future generations of designers and scholars.

“To the generations who intend to undertake the study of Ettore Sottsass, I would say to fasten their seatbelts because they’re about to set off for a world that moves very fast and is very colorful, rich in feelings and surprises. Sottsass was an author who was not afraid to venture into different fields and experience them all. At several difficult points in his life, he completely reinvented himself very courageously. So get ready for a memorable experience,” Marco concludes.