Ettore Sottsass studied architecture at the Politecnico di Torino from 1934-39. Following his military service and wartime imprisonment in Sarajevo, Sottsass returned to Italy where he worked in architectural office of his father. In 1946, he became a part of the architects’ group Guiseppe Pagano in Turin. The following year, Sottsass founded the design and architectural firm The Studio in Milan, from where he worked as an artist, architect, designer, exhibitions designer, and writer in primarily the magazine Domus.
During the later 1940’s and early 50’s, Sottsass worked on several architectural projects together with his father in Sardinia, as well as on the rebuilding of demolished cities in northern Italy. In 1956, Sottsass traveled to USA, where he briefly worked in the studio of George Nelson in New York.
Sottsass was the artistic director of Italian manufacturer Poltronova from 1957 to -74. From 1958- 82 he was a design consultant for Olivetti, initially at the Laboratory of Electronic Research in Milan where his designs included the mainframe computer Elea 9003 (1959), the red typewriter Valentine (1969), and the calculator Summa 19 (1970). For Elea 9003, Sottsass was awarded a Compasso D’oro in 1959. These pieces were the result of Sottsass view of the need for a new aesthetic in mass producti, beyond the modernistic functionalism.
In 1960, Sottsass opened his own studio in Milan from where he in 1962 designed the sofa Califfo for Poltrovna. Four years later the Kubirolo modular furniture system and the Suberbox furniture, made of laminated materials, were launched by the same manufacturer. During the early 1970’s Sottsass designed crockery and kitchen products for Alessi and participated in the exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1972).
In 1976 Sottsass had his first retrospective exhibition at the International Design Center in Berlin, which later traveled to Paris, Barcelona, Jerusalem, and Sydney. Sottsass was given an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London in 1970. Since the 1950’s Sottsass had pursued photography and during the 1970’s he created several photo series, including Fidanzati and Decorazioni. In 1978 he had his first photo exhibition in Ferrara, Italy.
In 1979-80 Sottsass became a member of the Alchima group, while also founding the design company Sottsass Associati together with a.o. Marco Zanini and Matteo Thun. In 1980 Sottsass was one of the founding members of the Memphis Milano company, for which he designed the Carlton bookshelf and several ceramics pieces. In 1985 Sottsass left the Memphis group and worked until the 2000’s mainly on architectural projects such as the Malpensa airport in Milan.
In 2001 the Memphis Remembered exhibition was shown at the Design Museum in London, where in 2007 the retrospective Ettore Sottsass: Work in Progress opened. Ettore Sottsass passed away in 2007 at the age of 90. In 2008 the posthumous exhibition Ettore Sottsas et le design italien was shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Ettore Sottsass is represented at several design museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Vitra Design Museum in Veil am Rhein, and the Museum of Furniture Studies in Stockholm.
