Ettore Sottsass, Jr. and Fernanda Pivano, Via Bernardino Luini 7, Milan, circa 1949 Gifted from the above to the present owner
Literature
'Forme, arredamenti, oggetti', Domus, no. 279, February 1953, illustrated pp. 32-33
Catalogue Essay
Ettore Sottsass - The First Apartment
Ettore Sottsass, Jr. designed the present coffee table for the living room of his first apartment in Milan. The architect moved to the apartment in October 1949 following his marriage to Fernanda Pivano, a well-known Italian intellectual and writer. A few years later, the living room was published in an article in Domus, alongside photographs of the interior taken by Sottsass himself, now held in the Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Centre Pompidou, Paris. The photographs illustrate a compact, minimal space, and clarify the integrated, asymmetrical design of the present table. A light wooden structure with fir posts supporting red-painted beams delineates a section of the living room. Within this micro domestic space, the coffee table, painted using the same carmine red, was the central focus. The table’s varied sides related to the surrounding furniture, including a set of yellow-painted plywood chairs oriented toward its integrated bookshelves; a sofa positioned in front of the overhang of the table top; and the opposite side without an overhang facing a wall-mounted bookcase. The small environment was dismantled in 1954, when Sottsass and Pivano moved to a new apartment, for which the architect would design their next interior.
Important and unique coffee table with integrated bookshelves, from the architect's own apartment, Milan
circa 1949 Painted wood. 49.4 x 127.6 x 106.7 cm (19 1/2 x 50 1/4 x 42 in.) Underside with paper label inscribed in blue pencil Arch./Ettore Sottsass jr./Via Bernardino Luini 7/Milano.