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Ettore Sottsass movable Memphis room devider for Sottsass Associati 1986

About the Item

Very rare movable Memphis room devider by Ettore Sottsass/Sottsass Associati, custom made 1986 for the former Esprit Headquarter in Düsseldorf/Germany. A statement by Etorre Sottsass in 2003 about the cooperation with Esprit: When Doug Tompkins approached Sottsass Associati in 1982 with the offer of working for Esprit, we realized that this was our big chance. Working with Esprit was an opportunity to implement on a very large scale some of the ideas we had developed in our search for new design possibilities. We called these possibilities "Memphis". The first exibition in which we presented Memphis were concerned with the design of free standing furniture, the design of surface textures and structures, the possible combination of heterogeneous materials, a new dynamic symmetry and the use of new colour schemes ect. Doug Tompkins' commission for the design of shop furnishings meant not only that we could develop our Memphis ideas at greater depth and realize them in very large rooms and spaces but also that we could ascertain how and to what extent the use of Memphis in designs for the general furnishing of busy interiors, in other words for the designing of places, would have any effect. In desiding to work with us, Doug Tompkins, who at that time was the President of Esprit, showed enormous courage, not only because he indentified himself one hundred percent with that creative and cultural process which we were seeking to set in motion but about much more, for our plan was to design an existential metaphor for a whole generation. All that went well for several years. Doug Tompkins gave us his full and wholehearted backing during all those years, but then the radicalness of the Memphis metaphor began to come into conflict with the consumer mood fo the time. This conflict was inevitable. It affected not only our vision of Memphis but also, as it well known, those expectations which had been the starting point of our collaboration with Esprit. If we look back - from the viewpoint of today - on those four or five years, they seem to have been a time of concentrated creativity, of the great designs and intensive discussions and, above all, of close collaboration between a group of designers and the extraordinary personality of Doug Tompkins. Doug's wife was also very involved at the beginning. Looking at all the photographs taken in those days, I might easily think that we perhaps approached the whole business much too eagerly, with hopes that were much too high and with too much trust in what the future would bring. The future of those days has meanwhile become the present of today, a present in which, in spite of everything, the shocks and vibrations of those time long past can still be felt. The problem is always knowing how things are going to develop from now on. I wish to thank Esprit most sincerely for having decided to mount this exhibition, for it evokes fond memories of those years of passionate enthusiasm. Ettore Sottsass, Milan, November 2003

Creator:

Sottsass Associati (Manufacturer),Ettore Sottsass (Designer)

Dimensions:

Height: 81.89 in (208 cm)Width: 177.17 in (450 cm)Depth: 9.85 in (25 cm)

Materials and Techniques:

Wood

Place of Origin:

Italy

Period:

1980-1989

Date of Manufacture:

1986

Condition:

Seller Location:

Köln, DE

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU7587235907772

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Shop All Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sottsass

An architect, industrial designer, philosopher and provocateur, Ettore Sottsass led a revolution in the aesthetics and technology of modern design in the late 20th century.

Sottsass was the oldest member of the Memphis Group — a design collective, formed in Milan in 1980, whose irreverent, spirited members included Alessandro Mendini, Michele de Lucchi, Michael Graves and Shiro Kuramata. All had grown disillusioned by the staid, black-and-brown “corporatized” modernism that had become endemic in the 1970s. Memphis (the name stemmed from the title of a Bob Dylan song) countered with bold, brash, colorful, yet quirkily minimal designs for furniture, glassware, ceramics and metalwork. They mocked high-status by building furniture with inexpensive materials such as plastic laminates, decorated to resemble exotic finishes such as animal skins. Their work was both functional and — as intended — shocking. Even as it preceded the Memphis Group's formal launch, Sottsass's iconic Ultrafragola mirror — in its conspicuously curved plastic shell and radical pops of pink neon — embodies many of the collective's postmodern ideals.

Sottsass's most-recognized designs appeared in the first Memphis collection, issued in 1981 — notably the multihued, angular Carlton room divider and Casablanca bookcase. As pieces on 1stDibs demonstrate, however, Sottsass is at his most imaginative and expressive in smaller, secondary furnishings such as lamps and chandeliers, and in table pieces and glassware that have playful and sculptural qualities.

It was as an artist that Ettore Sottsass was celebrated in his life, in exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in 2006, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art a year later. Even then Sottsass’s work prompted critical debate. And for a man whose greatest pleasure was in astonishing, delighting and ruffling feathers, perhaps there was no greater accolade. That the work remains so revolutionary and bold — that it breaks with convention so sharply it will never be considered mainstream — is a testament to his genius.