19.
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20. |
21.
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22. |
19.
Istanbul, Turkey.
20. The Grey Furniture.
21. Between Luxor and Thebes, Egypt.
22. The Grey Furniture. |
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Objects
To Ettore, an object encompasses memories of people, places,
and more objects. One such object of his affection is graveyards.
“These gardens of remembrance blossom with nostalgia [that]
may well stem from the nostalgia that exists for our own lives.”16
His Grey Furniture, designed for Radical Architecture in 1970,
imitates the colossal monuments adorning these gardens to index
the placement of the deceased (19, 20). The somber collection,
consisting of tables, chairs, beds, cupboards, and mirrors,
was manufactured of fiberglass-reinforced polyester, painted
in neutral gray, and illuminated with neon lights.17 In discussing
the furniture, Ettore alludes to the choice of color, which
is not unlike the earthy hues of grave markers (21, 22):
Grey
is a very sad colour, maybe the colour which my hair is going
into, I mean a color that will create some problem for anyone
who would like to use it for advertising detergents, toothpaste,
vermouth, aperitives in general, cocacola, electrical household
appliances, deodorants and things like that.18
Ettore
relishes in the difficult-to-exploit quality of the furniture
designs. He raises questions of what makes something consumable
and encourages nontraditional, emotional associations in design,
which are typically avoided in advertising.
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