Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sottsass was born in 1917 in Innsbruck and studied architecture at the Politecnico di Torino in 1939. One of the most influential and important figures of the last century, he is an architect and designer and was involved in all the radical movements that emerged from the 1970s and 1980s onwards. In 1981 he founded the Memphis group, which fundamentally changed the scenario of Italian and international design. He was awarded numerous international prizes such as the Golden Compass in 1959.

While the Memphis movement of the 1980s was attracting enormous attention worldwide for its energy and flamboyance, Ettore Sottsass was simultaneously assembling a major design consultancy firm, which he named Sottsass Associati. The studio was founded in 1980 and provided the opportunity to carry out architecture on a significant scale and to design for large international industrial enterprises.