Kitchens.it

THE TABLE AS SEEN BY ETTORE SOTTSASS

Some people choose the items they put on their tables and around their kitchens to bring a little colour and good taste into everyday life. Some do it to stun, and others choose colours, fabrics and shapes carefully to give a guest a warm welcome.

And yet thinking of the style of a table may also be a way of talking about philosophy and questioning the order of the cosmos and man's relationship with the universe. This is the approach of Ettore Sottsass, a personality who is not only a very great designer and architect but can also be described as an intriguing philosopher. His pieces for the world of the table and kitchen have been produced for Alessi over a twenty-year period.

Sottsass has designed all sorts of things: from salt-cellars to ice-buckets, and from sets of plates to lines of glasses. But these pieces are not just original and interesting, they are real interpretations of harmony and proportions, a constant striving to give material shape to the equilibrium of universal forces.

"I think it is very difficult to design a 'lovely table': it doesn't depend only on the tools used, but also on a subtle, fragile, precarious wisdom with which sometimes, someone, who knows how and who knows why, succeeds in channelling into the project for an event the total perception of our cosmic adventure: however provisional, suspended and incomprehensible this may be". (Ettore Sottsass, from "La Fabbrica dei Sogni", Alberto Alessi, Electa/Alessi 2002)

Surveying the objects Sottsass has designed for Alessi is rather like starting a long tour through a vast collection which has the ambition to become, over time, a complete set of objects for the home. The series of oil bottles produced in 1978 were the start of the series and, as Alessi itself says, recall the lines of a mosque.

Sottsass's pieces range from oil bottles to the cutlery set, and the great "Bella Tavola" service in porcelain. The Sherazade Jug designed in 1996 reappeared in 2001 in the insulated version.

The lovely Ginevra series glasses from 1996 are a coming-together of solidity and fragility, slenderness and thickness, severity and curvaceousness. Then come the sugar and cream service and the large sugar bowl, both from 1998.

For Sottsass, design is a way of talking about life, the forces which drive it, aspirations, society, politics and design itself. It is a real metaphor for life and a means of searching for understanding and transmission.

---

ON THE SAME TOPIC:

• 12/12/2003 WHAT YOU NEED FOR AN EASTERN TABLE...
• 10/12/2003 AT MACEF 03: MELTING POT PHILOSOPHY
• 09/12/2003 THE VASES IN THE ALESSI COLLECTION
• 09/12/2003 COLOURED BUT IRIDESCENT GLASS

RELATED LINKS:

• ALESSI