The studio people leave to become somebody: Sottsass Associati

Read the list of associates and you are reading a chapter of Italian design: Johanna Grawunder, Marco Zanini, Matteo Thun, Aldo Cibic, Marco Susani, James Irvine, Mike Ryan, Gerry Taylor, Christoph Radl, Mario Milizia, Christopher Redfern. Sottsass Associati, founded in Milan in 1980, has worked as a school as much as a practice: the associates came, carried the work under the cultural guidance of Ettore Sottsass, and often left to open their own offices. What stayed is a method that keeps producing architecture, interiors, exhibitions and furniture from Milan and London, from 1980 to today, under the two associates who remain.

Indian projects reach that lineage through La Mercanti and two houses in its catalogue, ICF and Segis: the Cloud chair the studio designed in 1998 and the Trono stacking chair.