Io sono un architetto – Ettore Sottsass

From Saturday, March 7 to Sunday, July 26, 2026, Palazzo Buontalenti in Pistoia is hosting a major exhibition dedicated to Ettore Sottsass (1917–2007). Painter, graphic designer, photographer and an absolute protagonist of 20ᵗʰ-century Italian design and architecture. His research spanned the entire century with a critical gaze sensitive to the transformations of contemporary society.

Titled Io sono un artchitetto (I am an Architect) – Ettore Sottsass, the exhibition takes shape from the rich documentary collection that the architect entrusted to the University of Parma Communication Archive (CSAC), offering a critical reinterpretation of more than 30 years of activity, from the immediate postwar period to the early 1970s. Special space is devoted to the relationship with Tuscany and to the craft and industrial realities that developed here—from the ceramics made with Aldo Londi in Montelupo Fiorentino, to the collaborations with Sergio Cammilli and with Poltronova in Agliana, Pistoia. 

Through drawings, photographs, ceramics, objects and archival documents tallying over 1,400 pieces, the exhibition recounts the evolution of a design-focused thinking that, disillusioned with the myth of progress, seeks the possibility of a new humanism of design in form, color and light.