The result is a human and visual landscape in which the distinctions between public and private become minimal, almost non-existent: for Sottsass, life knows no boundaries. As Barbara Radice recalls in her text, when asked one day about the meaning of this continuous recording, Ettore replied:
“I would like something to remain attached somewhere… I would like to stop something, even if only a trace, a glimmer… of that gold dust that is life.”
Almost always taken with his inseparable Leica equipped with a 21 mm lens, the images coincide with the beginning of a shared life, in which the boundaries between the intimate and public spheres dissolve. The result is the story of a nomadic and intensely lived existence, crossing distant and diverse places—from Milan to India, from Tunisia to Arizona, from Egypt to Syria and Qatar, passing through Jerusalem, Iran, Algeria, Mexico, the United States, French Polynesia, New Guinea, to Sicily and Filicudi. A continuous flow of landscapes, interiors, bodies, and everyday gestures transforms life itself into a veritable mise en scène.
This visual narrative is interwoven with a dense network of encounters and relationships: photographers such as Helmut Newton and Robert Mapplethorpe, together with Alfa Castaldi, Giovanni Gastel, and Oliviero Toscani; designers and architects such as Andrea Branzi, Michele De Lucchi, Vittorio Gregotti, Carlo Scarpa, Shiro Kuramata, Alessandro Mendini, and Achille Castiglioni; collectors and central figures in the world of art and music such as Jean Pigozzi, Max Palevsky, Carla Sozzani, Anish Kapoor, and Mick Jagger. The images convey a passion experienced as a daily ritual, anticipating the media exposure typical of contemporary social media and offering a direct, unmediated view of a world observed without filters.
Micaela Sessa writes:
“Barbara is very calm. She says that Ettore always thought that life is a mise en scène, a staging, just like in the Commedia dell’Arte: life as a performance, the improvisation of life, the wonder of life… Because, as he always said, ‘life must be beautiful.’”
Finally, the volume is enriched by contributions from Barbara Radice, Stefano Boeri, Christoph Radl, and Micaela Sessa, dedicated to one of the most influential figures in 20th-century architecture and design.
