"To view Sottsass' work in totality is not unlike an hallucinogenic trip into the outer reaches of subjectivity, as if everything else has always been but a shadow of a chair, and up until this point you have never seen a chair at all."
Sally Hershberger’s Manhattan penthouse, via Elle Decor
(the vintage ceiling fixture is by Ettore Sottsass)
"Some Like It Hot
Ettore Sottsass, architect of the 80s, is probably not the name that comes to mind when one thinks of timeless elegance. His best known pieces are wild, infused with a live energy that bends space, perhaps coming closer to refracted rays of light than to the mundane objects they reference. To view his work in totality is not unlike an hallucinogenic trip into the outer reaches of subjectivity, as if everything else has always been but a shadow of a chair, and up until this point you have never seen a chair at all.
That kind of intensity can be hard to live with.
And yet, with his recent passing and the slew of retrospectives that have followed, he is increasingly name dropped by the glitterati as influential -- and why not? It's not every designer that can create an object capable of such singular depth.
It's not every designer that can create an object capable of such force as to hold its own against the world's most famous breasts.
Now that is power surpassing the grave. Timeless, even."
-------------
DESIGN CRISIS has been one of my daily reads for well over a year now. DESIGN CRISIS is about art + interiors; the ultimate collision of the decorative and the purely aesthetic. I'm addicted to Design Crisis for so many reasons. Where else can you find images and commentary about how a Sol LeWiit will work with an existing color palette? Looking to find images of a Lalanne alligator chair beneath a Francis Bacon painting? Design Crisis will have them, trust me......Or perhaps placement of a Damien Hirst spin-art in the entry way? check!
DESIGN CRISIS is sugar for the mind, eyes, and soul.
(Thank you Erin!)
--------------------