“I have tried to capture as best I could the possible
terms of a new vitality and to capture the forms, the symbols that could
represent the multiplications of images of the century and the shift from
intellectual organizations to a sort of pure vital energy.”
Ettore Sottsass
Venice: Piazza San Marco – Olivetti
Showroom – S.O.S. Exhibition opening. In conjunction with the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, the Olivetti Showroom, a property run by FAI – Fondo Ambiente Italiano (Italy’s
National Trust) and located in St Mark’s Square, is playing host to S.O.S.
Sottsass Olivetti Synthesis, until August 21, the first exhibition dedicated to
the revolutionary Synthesis 45 office furniture system, presented by Olivetti
in 1973 and designed by Ettore Sottsass, who was then the design manager of the
Ivrea-based company.
Ettore Sottsass
The
exhibition anticipates by a year the centenary of Ettore Sottsass’s birth and
thus inaugurates the associated celebrations. S.O.S. is curated by Marco Meneguzzo, art critic and
lecturer in History of Contemporary Art at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Enrico Morteo, architect, historian and
architecture and design critic, and Alberto
Saibene, cultural historian and creator of films and documentaries.
S.O.S. – Sottsass Olivetti
Synthesis. Sixty works are on show, including original furnishings and documents,
many of which have never been exhibited before; desks, chairs, modular wall
units, drawer units, filing cabinets and accessories such as coat racks,
umbrella stands, wastepaper baskets, ashtrays, pen holders, pencil sharpeners
and telephone stands, all produced in the Olivetti
Synthesis plants at Massa Carrara
and together composing an ensemble of office furniture, the like of which had
never been seen before. Rather than sumptuous forms and rich materials, there
was a preference for simplicity of line and functionality, while the modularity made it possible to customize the composition
of the furniture, choosing from the various colors which were plastic pieces in
muted shades, from grey to caffelatte, plum, light blue and yellow. Color,
which in the 1960s was rare in office design, and was one of the system’s most
distinctive features: very much a part of the design, but neutral and
understated in order to induce a new vision of the office with the potential to
customize that space. The Synthesis 45
furniture no longer differentiated itself on the basis of rigid corporate
hierarchies, but on the various operational requirements of the user.
Archistar Vittorio Gregotti
Archistar Mario Bellini
S.O.S. – Sottsass Olivetti Synthesis
Sottsass
used as a dimensional standard a rigid spatial grid with a 45 centimeter base –
the figure that gave the system its name – a basic unit with which he fixed the
size of the office furnishings, taking account of the space required for the
electronic devices and telephones that would be sited on those pieces.
Drinks in Piazza San Marco
Co-curator Alberto Saibene and Jean Blanchaert
France Thierard, Cristina Beltrami and Roberto De Feo
Patrick J. Carroll Maria Grazia Rosin and Giannino Malossi