The initial idea for the Vegetal chair in 2004 was to create a piece of furniture that appeared as if it had grown naturally, like a plant. For inspiration, its designers, the French brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, looked to historic furniture that integrated a sense of organic growth: English garden chairs constructed in boughs of cast iron; ... See more

There are craftsmen with extraordinary savoir-faire. This is one of the treasures of the world, this savoir-faire, and some people are trained in it, and it’s produced in small quantities at a certain price. The price is fact—I can do nothing about it. I don’t want a world in which everything is built by robots or machines. However, In my kitchen, ... See more

Haughty and imposing, Hyatt by Ettore Sottsass suggests the structure of a classical column, with a “capital” equal at the base. It is an object that does not go unobserved, due to its opulence and the use of fine materials like briar. Hyatt relies on the masterful interaction of cylindrical forms with a symmetrical silhouette shaped by the identic... See more

Pierpaolo gently puts the camera away in its large case and takes out the latest issue of Toiletpaper . When shooting images for the magazine, he prefers to go digital. “We use the camera more like a video. We move around the object, we move around the set, we go in and out, we observe our setting from multiple angles. The digital camera allows for... See more

As one of the inspirational figures of Italy’s ricostruzione (the country’s post-war rebuilding), Sottsass penetrated a wide range of arenas with his work, including fashion stores, computers, furniture, industrial design, glass, ceramics, painting and photography.

The first school is represented by “classic designers,” such as my friends Dieter Rams and Kenji Ekuan, the late Ettore Sottsass, Jr., Mario Bellini, and Jonathan Ives. These designers can run their own studios or be corporate stars. Ten or fifteen years ago, I would have included myself in this group. This school’s approach to design is both logic

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Sottsass founded the Memphis group with a band of radical creatives including Alessandro Mendini, Andrea Branzi, Aldo Cibic, Hans Hollein, Michele de Lucchi, Shiro Kuramata, Matteo Thun, Paola Navone and Nathalie du Pasquier. The movement launched its visual fireworks at Milan’s Salone del Mobile in 1981 with hyper-patterned, technicolour furniture... See more

He was a creator in the true sense, bringing new ideas and sensibility to life; it’s rare to do that over so many decades. His legacy is still undigested because he kept reinventing himself. He responded to what he saw around him and worked with the new materials and technologies introduced during his lifetime. With some historical references only ... See more

The Austrian-born, Italian-based designer Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007) was a rebel with a cause. As a counter-force to Modernism, his designs raged against a post-war rationalist approach that largely excluded emotional values by prizing function above form. Instead, Sottsass’s primary focus was social, cultural and sensorial – a design currency tha... See more