MAY. 1997
Ettore Sottsass _ Metaphors
In the deserts and mountains of Spain, Ettore Sottsass Jr. built things that were never meant to last. Fragile constructions of string, ribbon, wood, stones, and scraps of clothing, placed in the landscape, photographed, and left behind. These were not architecture in any conventional sense, but something closer to a question: what is the relationship between a human being and the space they inhabit?
Sottsass created these works at a moment of deep personal reflection on the role of the architect in modern industrial society. By returning to the most elemental conditions open sky, bare ground, the simplest of materials, he stripped architecture back to its essence. Doors opening onto emptiness, floors with no ground beneath them, beds where no one could sleep: each image a meditation on existence, fragility, and meaning.
