His first journey to the United States in 1956 was encouraged in no small part by his first wife, the writer and translator Fernanda “Nanda” Pivano. Renowned for introducing American literature to Italian readers through her translations of Hemingway or Faulkner, Pivano had close ties to the American cultural scene. Her intellectual and international outlook shaped the post war years of Ettore Sottsass.
During his stay, Sottsass was a trainee in the studio of George Nelson, then design director at Herman Miller and one of the central figures of American modernism. Returning to Italy, he later recalled that the experience had changed him “inside out.”
Study for an apartement with paintings by Capogrossi, 1957. The drawing of Sottsass shows also the Diamond Chair of Harry Bertoia. Below: First furniture for Poltronova, 1957. Via Domus Archives.
Through the sculptor Agenore Fabbri, he was introduced to the newly founded furniture company Poltronova. He started as an external consultant, designing a series of boldly coloured wooden furniture, mainly cabinets or sideboards. Although still grounded in the language of post-war modernism, they introduced the graphic and architectural approach that would later culminate in the Superboxes of the late 1960s and, ultimately, Memphis. His Superbox, which was introduced in the late 1960s. It tends to overshadow the earlier furniture, but those first cabinets are historically important because they document the impact of his trip to America.
Sketch by Sottsass, 1960.
His earliest production for Poltronova (1957–58) consisted of wooden cabinets, sideboards and storage furniture that were still rooted in post-war modernism but already showed his growing interest in graphic pattern. They are quite restrained compared with the later Superboxes but already reveal his fascination with turning storage furniture into architectural compositions.
From sketch to photograph: Sottsass meticulously planned the presentation of his early Poltronova furniture, specifying the composition, colours and even the circular framing of the photograph. Long before designers routinely art-directed their own campaigns, he understood that the image of the object was part of the object itself. That idea would later become central to Memphis, where photography, graphics and exhibition design were inseparable from the furniture.
Sottsass himself referred to the Superboxes as “crazy things.” They were conceived in 1965–66 and represented a radical break from conventional storage furniture. The revolutionary idea was the transformation of the wardrobe into a freestanding object. Instead of disappearing against a wall, the cabinet became a vertical sculpture, almost a totem or architectural column. Sottsass wanted these pieces to stand in the middle of the room. He later explained that such isolated objects possessed an almost ritual energy.
The striped surfaces were made from plastic laminate supplied by Abet Print (later Abet Laminati). This was the first time Sottsass employed laminate so radically in furniture. Until then, laminate had been regarded as an inexpensive industrial material for kitchens and worktops. Sottsass elevated it into an expressive surface in its own right, a decision that later became fundamental to Memphis.
The idea of using plastic laminate may also be traced back to Sottsass’s first journey to the United States. In diners, bars and other everyday interiors he encountered laminate as an ordinary commercial material: durable, inexpensive and modern. A decade later, the material resurfaced in the Superboxes. What had impressed him in America became a defining surface and a hallmark of his later Memphis designs.