Venezia
Venezia is a table designed by Ettore Sottsass for the house he shared with his life companion, Barbara Radice. This piece, now part of Memphis’ catalogue, is named after Venice, the city where they met on occasion of the Biennale in 1976.
A preparatory drawing of Venezia can be seen in a collection of drawings by Sottsass spanning from 1978 to 1980. A prototype of another shape and size was part of a collective exhibition in Linz in 1980. In the introduction to these "Esercizi formali", furniture such as the Venezia table is defined by Sottsass himself as similar to "monuments in squares". According to the author, it is a table that "does not bind", does not produce coordinates. Narration and decoration have autonomous strength, anticipating the great novelty of Memphis.
