ETTORE SOTTSASS (Austria, 1917 - Italy, 2007) for FONTANA ARTE.
Blue glass vase, 1980s.
Glass.
Measurements: 23 x 18 x 8 cm.
The Austrian creator Ettore Sottsass revolutionised the history of design by applying his daring, anti-rationalist aesthetic concept to all the areas in which he excelled: industrial design, furniture, architecture and glass.
"The idea of designing a glass composed of pieces joined together, in one way or another, pieces of glass of different colours, different thicknesses, different opacities and transparencies, different shapes and origins, gave me great freedom of drawing and I could imagine unexpected balances of structures".
An example of these ideas materialised is this particular glass vase-sculpture made from pure, geometric forms for Fontana Arte.
Similar examples were published in Skira's book "Ettore Sottsass Il Vetro" on page 195 Sottsass for Fontana Arte 1980.
Sottsass's design is a vindication of kitsch as high culture applied to furniture and design objects, it was indebted to his travels: living in New York he had immersed himself in pop art and, after his various and recurring visits to India, he ended up inheriting the chromatic joy of Hindu temples and statuary. He thus established a postmodernist pattern that would have great impact and would oppose the rigidity of traditional rationalism.