Ettore Sottsass
The Planet as Festival: Study for Design of a Stadium to Watch the Stars, project
1972-73
Graphite on paper
Not on view
Concerned with the deterioration of urban life, Sottsass used the series The Planet as Festival to depict a utopian land where all of humanity is free from work and social conditioning. In his futuristic vision, goods are free, abundantly produced, and distributed around the globe. Liberated from banks, supermarkets, and subways, individuals can “come to know by means of their bodies, their psyche, and their sex, that they are living,” he said. According to his ideas, once consciousness has been reawakened, technology could be used to heighten self-awareness, and life would be in harmony with nature. Reflecting the counterculture of his time, Sottsass illustrated such instruments for entertainment as a monolithic dispenser for incense, drugs, and laughing gas set in a campground, rafts for listening to chamber music on a river, and a stadium in which to watch the stars.
9 + 1 Ways of Being Political: 50 Years of Political Stances in Architecture and Urban Design, September 12, 2012–March 25, 2013.
Publication excerpt from an essay by Bevin Cline and Tina di Carlo, in Terence Riley, ed., The Changing of the Avant-Garde: Visionary Architectural Drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection , New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002, p. 134.
Concerned with the deterioration of urban life, Ettore Sottsass used The Planet as Festival series to depict a utopian land where all of humanity would be free from work and social conditioning. In his futuristic vision goods are free, abundantly produced, and distributed throughout the globe. Freed from banks, supermarkets, and subways, individuals can "come to know by means of their bodies, their psyche, and their sex, that they are living." Once consciousness has been reawakened, technology would be used to heighten self-awareness, and life would be in harmony with nature. The Planet as Festival drawings are black-and-white studies for hand-colored lithographs. They depict such "super-instruments" for entertainment as a monolithic dispenser for incense, drugs, and laughing gas set in a campground, rafts for listening to chamber music on a river, and a stadium to watch the stars.
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