EXHIBITION | SOTTSASS OLIVETTI SYNTHESIS
Credits: Renato Parada
On display from March 28th to May 14th, 2017.
In the year of the centenary of the birth of the architect and designer Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007), a partnership between the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of São Paulo and the Museu da Casa Brasileira, an institution of the Secretary of Culture of the State of São Paulo, brought to the country the Sottsass Olivetti Synthesis exhibition. It was the first exhibition dedicated to the line of furniture and office objects Synthesis 45, presented by the Olivetti factory in 1972 and designed by Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007), known worldwide for his performance in front of the postmodern group Memphis (1981- 1987). The opening took place on March 28, with free admission, and the show continued on display at the Museu da Casa Brasileira until May 14, 2017. Check the opening records:
Credits: Vinicius Stasolla
“It is with immense pleasure that the Istituto Italiano di Cultura presents in São Paulo, a metropolis that dictated, like few others, the pace of modernity, ‘Sottsass Olivetti Synthesis’, an emblematic exhibition of the extraordinary and successful journey of Italian design and, at the same time, a tribute to one of the most brilliant interpreters of the Italian style, who has become familiar on the world stage, ” said Renato Poma, director of IIC, the institution responsible for bringing the show to Brazil.
According to the general director of MCB Miriam Lerner, “international partnerships guarantee a greater diversity of exhibition programming, consolidating the institution in its areas of vocation, design, architecture and related areas. In this case, it is practically impossible to think about Brazilian design without considering the conceptual influences arising from Italian creation ”.
Credits: Disclosure
The exhibition arrived in São Paulo after a first exhibition in May 2016, during the 15th Venice Biennale of Architecture, at the Olivetti showroom located in St. Mark’s Square and designed by Carlo Scarpa in 1958. The exhibition presented a wide graphic environment from of the catalogs of the modular system, bringing around 50 pieces, among which: work tables, chairs, files, typewriters, support tables, as well as accessories such as coat racks, umbrella holders, bins, ashtrays and door -pens, all originals of the time produced at the Olivetti Synthesis headquarters in Massa Carrara, in Tuscany, Italy.
In making Synthesis 45, Sottsass and his collaborators – names like Perry King, Albert Leclerc, Bruno Scagliola, Tiger Umeda and Jane Young – redraw the “work landscape”, creating a model in which a more flexible system is associated with greater flexibility of arrangements and respect for the freedom of the individual. Thus, an introduction to postmodernity in interior architecture is inaugurated, the result of a rationalist rigor associated with the transgressive aesthetics of pop-art. “It was a proposal, even for the times of non-digitalized work as today, that presented a new aesthetic for open offices, formally more relaxed and colorful than the systems that existed until then”, observed Giancarlo Latorraca, architect and technical director of MCB.
Credits: Disclosure
The name for the Synthesis 45 series of furniture comes from a modular system standardized from the 45 cm unit. The development of this pattern and other details of the line are explored in the film “Olivetti Syntheses serie 45/80”, presented by Sottsass himself and shown in the exhibition. The exhibition also brought a series of images of offices made by the photographer Gabriele Basilico (1944-2013), one of the most famous professionals in the world in the architectural record.
Check out the promotional video for the 45 – 50 series:
Sottsass Olivetti Synthesis is curated by Marco Meneguzzo, art critic and professor of Contemporary Art History at the Accademia di Belle Arti de Brera, Alberto Saibene, cultural historian, filmmaker and documentary filmmaker, and Enrico Morteo, architect, historian and design critic and critic architecture. Morteo was also the curator of another important exhibition held through the partnership between MCB and IIC in 2008, “Roberto Sambonet – from Brazil to Design”, presenting the extensive and transversal work of the Italian post-war designer, who lived a period in the Brazil having even collaborated with the first Masp of 1947.
The curators were present at the opening of the exhibition, which is part of the Italian Design Day calendar, an initiative promoted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation to celebrate the excellence of Italian design worldwide. The Italian Design Day took place in parallel to the first day of the 56th edition of the Milan Furniture Show, from April 4 to 9, 2017.
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About MCB
The Museu da Casa Brasileira, an institution of the Secretariat of Culture and Creative Economy of the State of São Paulo, is dedicated to the preservation and diffusion of the material culture of the Brazilian house, being the only museum in the country specialized in architecture and design. The MCB’s program includes temporary and long-term exhibitions, with an agenda that also includes activities of the educational service, debates, lectures and publications contextualizing the museum’s vocation for the formation of critical thinking on topics such as architecture, urbanism, housing, economics creativity, urban mobility and sustainability. Among its numerous initiatives, the Design MCB Award stands out, the main segment award in the country held since 1986; and the Casas do Brasil project, to rescue and preserve memory about the rich diversity of living in the country.
Museu da Casa Brasileira_ Av. Faria Lima, 2705
Phone: (11) 3032-3727
