Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sottsass is remembered as one of the preeminent Italian post-modern designers, one whose work in architecture and industrial design was highly influential on the Anti-Design movement and pop culture of the second half of the 20th century. Sottsass was born in Austria in 1917, though in the late 1920s he moved to Italy with his family (his father was the prominent Italian architect Ettore Sottsass, Sr). He set up his first studio in Milan before traveling to New York in the 1950s, where he worked in the office of George Nelson from 1956 to 1957. A future-minded designer, Sottsass worked closely with Olivetti, designing the Elea 9003 (the first Italian calculator) in 1959 and the company's first electronic typewriter, the Tekne, a few years later. In the 1980s, he began collaborating with Studio Alchimia, a group of furniture designers that included Alessandro Mendini and Andrea Branzi, before founding Memphis in 1980. The collective included over 20 designers and was recognized for its forward-looking ideas. Sottsass disbanded the group in 1988, when he deemed its relevance over, and continued to work under Sottsass Associati and with other high-tech companies, such as Apple, Philips, and Siemens. He passed away in 2007 at the age of 90, after resurged interest in his work led to exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.