Valigia
Decorative Table Lamp
Designed by Ettore Sottsass Jr
1977
Valigia is ironic and informal: the small handle and the two bearing arches in red piping are connected to the metal vault which contains the light. Valigia is a small architecture without precise confines, clearly conceived to be taken anywhere.
Lampshade in glossy white painted metal. Lamp body, joints and bulb holder in black painted metal. Rod in chromed metal, base in iron with external finishing in polyethylene.
Ettore Sottsass Jr
Architect, designer, and photographer, founder of the Memphis Group (an Italian design and architecture collective active between 1981 and 1987), Sottsass, through his production of design objects, always manages to express the emerging ideas of Contro Design or Radical Design, that is, social criticism expressed through objects characterized by the strong experimentalism of materials, technique, and forms, in direct opposition to the common style and trends of the current era.
Winner of the Premio Compasso d’Oro in 1959 and 1970 (Olivetti), and in 1989 (Alessi). Many important exhibitions have been dedicated to him: in 1976 at the Cooper Hewitt in New York and at the International Design Zentrum in Berlin, at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1994 and in 2003, at the Design Gallery Milano in 1988, 1993 and 1995, at the Suntory Museum in Osaka in 2000, at the Museo d’Arte Decorativa in Cologne in 2004, and at the MART in Rovereto in 2005.
His works are preserved in the most prestigious museums throughout the world.