No abstract

Ettore Sottsass archive is a fragmented and dispersed reality. At present only an historical research, together with the application of digital strategies and digitisation practices, could (re)construct it as a complete and coherent network of projects. It is today housed in several different institutions: the funds recently donated to Fondazione Giorgio Cini are now central to an ongoing research study, promoted by IUAV University, Venice, together with the ARCHiVe Centre of the same foundation. The project is part of a multi-annual digitisation and inventorying work: its objective is to offer the access to unpublished primary sources to a wider audience.

The histories of Italian design and architecture may be more readily understood if one considers that many of the protagonists are architect-designers. Identifying the root of this convergence in an academic and professional educational system based on the idea of the "complete architect", trained to work at any scale of design, this paper frames the work of the architect-designers within the cultural, economic and manufacturing context of the period between the 1920s and 1980s, when for historical reasons their role became particularly significant. Furthermore, many design historians in Italy are the product of the same education as the architects, and having followed the same course of studies as the architectural historians, they acquired the same techniques of investigation and interpretation, which they later refined in their own fields. The theme is thus explored from the perspectives of the two authors, both architects but with specific training one as an architectural historian, and the other as a design historian. The relationship between the two research directions-the theoretical debate and its narrations, the relationship between designers and manufacturers-makes it possible to clarify some of the aspects that distinguish the history of Italian design culture compared to that of other Western nations.