Skip to main content
Ettore Sottsass, Chi ha paura di Frank Lloyd Wright?, 1978

Ettore Sottsass
Chi ha paura di Frank Lloyd Wright?
, 1978

ink and tempera on paper, 67.5 × 49 cm

If Wright is indicated as one of the cornerstones of modernism in architecture, it is not surprising that Sottsass, in turn indicated as a protagonist of postmodernism, makes him the target of an ironically critical title. If the indication of organic architecture, like many others coming from the modern movement, must become a dogma, then transgressions are better, even if this means referring to tradition. Here then is Sottsass's project: a single-storey house that seems prefabricated, decidedly in line with the rules of mass production and the impersonal style of urban suburbs, all right angles and yet "personalized" by the architect's design, of great cleanliness formal. To support the building, an unlikely base-pedestal-garden (artificial?) with three steps. At the bottom right is the dedication to Pomodoro: “Ciao Arnaldo, amici antichi ormai, 22/6/78. Ettore".

from: Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro. La Collezione permanente, exhibition catalogue, edited by G. Verzotti, A. Vettese, Milano, Skira, 2007, p. 179.