While looking for pictures of Sottsass' architecture, which I still haven't found, I saw a 1997 story about Sottsass with a wonderful quote about what interested him about architecture.
"Luogo is a place... already filled with memories, visions. I consider architecture not as a monument, not as a piece. I consider architecture just as the opening of a place of possibility. Building is not so important. It's what you prepare to the left of the building and the right of the building. If you build a wall, the wall is there; it's not important, but you invent places. There's the left of the wall, the right of the wall."--Ettore Sottsass
Louis Kahn talked about creating space, instead of buildings, and his buildings do create austere voids that strangely DO bring space from "silence to light."
But Sottsass takes the concept of building space instead of buildings another direction...to place--place full of "memories and visions."
The story says many of his buildings (done jointly with other architects at his firm) are built. I hope when I finally see these that I find he succeeded in creating place. Its a liberating humane notion...if he pulls it off.
FWIW, Ettore talks just like Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. writes. I hope they have met each other and talked. They both have elevated the poet William Blake's childlike vision to a working approach to their crafts (they sound eerily the same, both cauterized into this childlike voice apparently by the horror of WWII) that is staggering in its irony against the harsh backdrop of the world's nightmares. Childlike wonder in the face of the surreal powered by very powerful brains.
Read the Sottsass story at the link below.
Read this article. Its worthwhile.
Because of the overwhelming response 🙂
I am going to recast this slightly.
Do any architects or interior designers design interiors with the same idea of place (luogo) that Sottsass describes in designing buildings? Or do they all do this?
He describes the building as being not as important as the space created by it. I wonder if an interior designer has approached the space program of the interior of houses or offices in this way, or must the function and look of objects (like chairs, etc.) and the harmonious orchestration of their color/form/mass/texture relationships remain the paramount drivers of how one approaches designing an interior?
Put as simply as possible, can one only design objects and then organize them into harmony, or can one design objects to achieve spaces in and around those objects that are useful and beautiful?
Perhaps this is hairsplitting, but it seems to be getting at a fundamentally different way of looking at design. The former would be objects designed as ends in themselves being coordinated with other objects. The latter would be space created with objects.
Maybe I am just grappling with metaphysics or mastering the obvious of how designers already think, but, as I said, there seems to be a significant distinction of process here. Whether or not it would yield something better or worse, I cannot say.
In response
to the excellent comments above, I have to say that Wright's sort of interior work -- with purpose-built and many built-in firnishings, etc -- would exemplify one of the types mentioned, as would many a boat interior. I must also (in light of something Sottsass said, as well) repeat the following:
fur*ni*tec*ture, n. 1. the science, art, or profession of designing and constructing furniture; see ARCHITECTURE. 2. furniture which refers to, is related to, derives from, or is intended to accompany, architecture. 3. furniture which mimics, imitates, or (God forbid) mocks architecture. 4. furniture made of architectural materials, or of recognizable substitutions thereof. 5. furniture which creates an architecture. 6. furniture which attempts to create an architecture. 7. architecture made of, or from, furniture.
Stephen D Ritchings [7.27.90]sdrdesign@yahoo.com
What a great article...
And a great man... I had the pleasure of hearing him speak on Memphis when we lived in San Francisco in the early-80's... He had a keen sense of humor and was very entertaining and thought provoking... We have a 48"sq Olivetti back lit sign in red with Sottsass graphics that I'm now moving from our patio to the interior and four Sottsass Mandarin dining chairs (By Knoll) that are now discontinued... Sottsass might tell me to get rid of them all and move on to something new... Something to think about creating a new and updated sense of place...
Furnitecture?...what a useful word!
It exactly describes what I think about when I am in a Wright building and looking at his furnishings. Its nice when a person can coin the right word and have it be more than jargon. The difference between the right word and a jargon word is the same difference between a masterful design and a good design. They both work, but one is definitive without need of further refining.
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