Ettore Sottsass

ETTORE SOTTSASS (Innsbruck, Austria, 1917–Milan, 2007) for Staff Leuchten.
ID/S floor lamp, 1980s.
Lacquered metal, glass, and plastic components.
In good condition, with slight signs of wear consistent with its age.
Measurements: 188 × 25 × 43 cm.

The ID/S lamp is a representative example of Ettore Sottsass’s postmodern work from the 1980s. Its structure consists of a slender, square-section shaft and a rectangular base, topped by a curved reflector that supports a glass panel and projects light indirectly toward the ceiling.

The hallmarks of the structure’s rigorous geometry and the reflector’s sinuous profile lend the piece a distinct sculptural presence. Sottsass thus transforms a floor lamp of great formal simplicity into an expressive object, in which architecture, light, and geometry are integrated into an essential composition. The model is documented as having been produced by Staff Leuchten in the early 1980s.

Ettore Sottsass was a key figure in 20th-century design and the leading force behind the Memphis Group. His career evolved from rationalism toward a postmodern language characterized by the symbolic and emotional dimensions of objects. His work is represented in institutions such as MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.