18.
Decoration of a Shrine for the Hair of My Father’s Right
Hand |
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Another image, captured during a later nomadic digression between
1976–1979, is particularly poignant in reflecting his respect
for loved ones in faraway places. Surprisingly, he chose color
to photograph it: the day looks overcast, and the picture appears
tungsten cast. In any case, he claims, “I have now learned
that I should only take colourphotos when it would be pointless
to do otherwise, when the combination of colours to a certain
extent tells its own story; the colours must say something in
themselves.”13 (It is the only color photograph in the
book, Design Metaphors.) Pink, yellow, orange, and red strings
are tied to twigs that surround a cloth-laden snowball resting
on an evergreen branch (18). He supplements the image with a
description:
Reliquary
for the hair of the right hand of my father, Ettore Sottsass,
architect, resting on his death bed at 4:12 p.m. on October
29th, 1954.
With his right hand my father drew innumerable lines, angles,
circles, and diagonals using all kinds of pencils, rulers, and
shiny black inks; with water color he painted perspectives of
entire cities, apartment blocks, houses, and tombstones; he
spent hours and hours erasing mistaken plans; he measured heights,
breadths, and thicknesses; he shook hands
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