Tangiblemind

© J. Emilio Flores - Ettore Sottsass at the retrospective held in his honor at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2006.

It’s discomforting and unusual to start a blog with a notice of death, but Ettore Sottsass died last Monday at 90.

The news, of course, is very well covered by online and printed newspapers or magazines and, in addition to that, for those who are interested to get more information about Sottsass, his life and his works, the web is a formidable source for getting in touch with him through interviews, essays, books’ reviews, etc.

Here, i would like just to remember when i got the chance to meet him at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea,  for a ‘Catalyst’ lecture. He was introduced by Gillian Crampton Smith and interviewed on his new book ‘Scritti’ (it happened on 5 June 2003) by Michele De Lucchi; truly inspiring…

Two quotes from him:

“Per me il design è un modo di discutere la vita. È un modo di discutere la società, la politica, l`erotismo, il cibo e persino il design. Infine, è un modo di costruire, una possibile utopia figurativa o di costruire una metafora della vita. Certo, per me il design non è limitato dalla necessità di dare più o meno forma a uno stupido prodotto destinato a un`industria più o meno sofisticata; per cui, se devi insegnare qualcosa sul design, devi insegnare prima di tutto qualcosa sulla vita e devi insistere anche spiegando che la tecnologia è una delle metafore della vita”

and

“Be patient, calm, compassionate, knowing that existence is fleeting” (as cited on Wired by Bruce Sterling, who btw nowadays is in Turin for the TDWC2008).

A good starting point is the news on the Daily Telegraph website:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/02/db0203.xml