Ettore Sottsass made objects that look like they have something to say. A typewriter arrives in a bright plastic case with its own carrying cover; a bookcase stands like a figure with raised arms; a vase is stacked like a small temple. Behind the play sits a working designer who spent decades on office machines for Olivetti while also making ceramics and furniture for smaller firms. For designers, his lesson is that colour, pattern and form can carry meaning, and that the most ordinary materials can carry them well.
His work is in copyright. None of the Ettore Sottsass objects held by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland Museum of Art or the Met is flagged public domain, so this guide describes the pieces in text and names the museums that hold them. For public domain images you can reuse, browse the MGD museum inspiration collection.
Who was Ettore Sottsass?
The Met records him as Italian, born in Innsbruck, Austria, in 1917, and died in Milan in 2007; the Art Institute of Chicago and the Cleveland Museum of Art give the same years. The Met’s press release for its 2017 retrospective adds that he was educated in Turin, and describes a career that moved from modernism toward postmodernism, with his work for the Memphis collective in the 1980s as the part most people know.
That retrospective, Ettore Sottsass: Design Radical, ran at The Met Breuer in New York from 21 July to 8 October 2017, marking a century since his birth. It was organised by the Met curator Christian Larsen and covered architectural drawings, interiors, furniture, machines and ceramics. For a longer life, Barbara Radice’s Ettore Sottsass: A Critical Biography (Thames & Hudson, 1993) gives a book-length account.
Key works, from mainframe to Memphis
Olivetti machines (from the late 1950s). The Met’s press release names him as Olivetti’s design consultant on the Elea 9003 mainframe computer of 1958. Machines and office furniture for Olivetti run through the museum records: the Met holds a side chair from the Synthesis 45 office furniture system dated 1972, and the Art Institute holds a Studio 45 portable typewriter from the early 1970s, credited to Sottsass with Hans von Klier.
Ceramic totems (1965–66). The Met’s 2017 show included five of his industrial ceramic totems from the project Menhir, Ziggurat, Stupas, Hydrants and Gas Pumps. The title alone explains the method: monuments, religious architecture and roadside hardware treated as equal sources of form.
Superboxes for Poltronova (1960s). The Art Institute describes these as large laminate sculptures, or Superboxes, designed for the furniture firm Poltronova, and traces the later Carlton bookcase back to them.
Valentine portable typewriter (1968–69). The Art Institute dates its example to 1969 and credits Sottsass with the British designer Perry King, made by Olivetti in ABS plastic. The Met dates its example to 1968. The V&A notes that the Valentine entered production in 1969, and the Cooper Hewitt dates its launch to Valentine’s Day of that year. The machine slides into a plastic case with a handle, turning office equipment into a portable, personal object.
Asteroid lamp (1968) and Shiva vase (1973). The Met holds the Asteroid lamp in coloured acrylic and cast aluminium. The Art Institute holds the Shiva vase in glazed earthenware, made by BD Barcelona, and notes that Sottsass called such pieces his “small, small architectures” and linked the vase to shrines he saw on trips to India, which began in 1961.
The Structures Tremble (1979). The Met holds this table in plastic laminate, composition board, painted steel, rubber and glass. The glass top sits on thin, slightly unsteady-looking supports, so the title is also a description.
Carlton room divider (1981). All three museums hold one. The Art Institute dates the launch of the Memphis collective to 1981 and describes a collection that combined bold geometry and wild pattern with everyday materials such as aluminium and Formica. Its notes describe the Carlton as a bookshelf and cabinet in several colours of plastic laminate, built up in tiers into a figure-like form that recalls the head and arms of an ancient idol or totem.
The 1980s. The Met’s holdings trace the decade in detail: the Mizar glass vase and Murmansk silver fruit dish of 1982, the Euphrates porcelain vase and Pausania lamp of 1983, the Tartar table of 1985 in printed laminate, the Enorme telephone of 1986 in ABS, and the “Miss, Don’t You Like Caviar?” armchair of 1987. The Cleveland Museum of Art holds a silver fruit bowl of 1982 made with Memphis.
Architecture (1986–88). The Met holds his drawings for the Daniel Wolf Residence in Ridgway, Colorado: marker and wax crayon sketches from early 1986, later perspectives in graphite, coloured pencil and wax crayon, and a view of the executed design dated May 1988.
What to look at in an Ettore Sottsass design
- Stacked volumes. The Carlton, the totems and the vases are built from distinct blocks, each with its own colour or material, piled up like a small building.
- Colour blocking. Flat areas of strong colour meet at hard edges. Read where each colour starts and stops, because those edges define the form.
- Printed pattern on cheap surfaces. Laminate printed with dots, speckles or squiggles gives a mass-produced surface a voice. The Met’s Tartar table and the Schizzo textile of 1983 show how loose the marks could be.
- Symbol over function. The Shiva vase and the Carlton point to temples and idols. Shelves become arms; a vase becomes a shrine.
- Machine as companion. The Valentine and the Enorme telephone treat equipment as something personal, colourful and easy to carry.
Technique: laminate, plastic and ceramic
The museum records show a designer who worked in almost every medium. Plastic laminate glued onto composition board or wood, as in the Carlton and The Structures Tremble, gives a flat, durable skin that can be printed or produced in strong colours. ABS plastic, used for the Valentine and the Enorme telephone, allows smooth moulded cases in a single bright colour. Glazed earthenware and porcelain for the vases let him stack thrown and moulded parts like architecture in miniature. Glass, silver and enamelled metal in the 1980s vases, fruit dishes and jewellery extend the same building-block logic to small objects.
His drawings matter as much as the objects. The Met’s Colorado drawings move from quick marker and crayon sketches to more finished perspectives, with colour present from the first sheet. Colour was part of the idea, not a finish added at the end.
How designers can borrow Ettore Sottsass’s ideas
- Build forms from blocks. Compose a layout, logo or package from a few distinct shapes, each with one colour, stacked or offset like the Carlton tiers.
- Let surfaces talk. Use a printed texture or pattern on a plain material, whether a speckled background on a poster or a pattern band on packaging, to give an ordinary item character.
- Pick colours that clash on purpose. Sottsass placed strong colours side by side without neutral buffers. Build a deliberately bold palette and check its contrast with the MGD colour palette generator.
- Give tools a personality. For an app or a device, think about how it is carried, opened and shown, as the Valentine’s case did.
- Draw in colour from the start. Sketch with markers or crayons so colour decisions are made with the form.
- Study his neighbours. Our profile of Joe Colombo, who also worked in Milan in the 1960s, shows another route through Italian design, built on moulded plastic and modular systems rather than symbol. For a calmer, more practical approach to modular furniture, compare our guide to Charlotte Perriand.
Frequently asked questions
What is Ettore Sottsass known for?
For office machines designed for Olivetti, including the Valentine portable typewriter of 1968–69 with Perry King, for ceramics such as the 1960s totems, and for colourful laminate furniture such as the Carlton room divider of 1981, made with the Memphis collective.
What was Memphis?
A design collective based in Milan that launched its first collection in 1981, according to the Art Institute of Chicago. Its furniture and objects combined bold geometry, strong colour and printed pattern with ordinary materials such as plastic laminate.
Where can I see Ettore Sottsass’s work?
The Met, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the V&A and the Cooper Hewitt all hold examples, though not every piece is on view.
Can designers use images of Ettore Sottsass’s designs?
His designs remain in copyright, and none of the holdings in the Art Institute of Chicago, Cleveland or Met open-access collections is flagged public domain. Use his methods as inspiration, and do not reproduce photographs of his work without permission from the rights holders.
