Ettore Sottsass. Mise en scène

From December 12, 2025 to February 15, 2026, Triennale Milano presents the exhibition Ettore Sottsass. Mise en scène, curated by Barbara Radice, Micaela Sessa and Studio Sottsass, with art direction by Christoph Radl.

The exhibition focuses on Ettore Sottsass's private life, through an extensive selection of photographs documenting numerous moments, both public and private, of the great architect's personal and professional life. The exhibition opens a new chapter in the research dedicated to Ettore Sottsass that Triennale has been pursuing for several years, together with Studio Sottsass.

Stefano Boeri, President of Triennale Milano, stated, "Always, almost every day from 1976 to 2007, Ettore and Barbara turned their life together into a story. The sequence of intimate, private images was destined to eventually become a public account of their wide-open, vibrant, total love. The story of their life recounted by these hundreds of photographs lay dormant for years in folders (labelled by year) that Barbara Radice kept in her apartment in the heart of Millan. Now that Triennale has released and exhibited them, they have become once again an almanac of this intense love, which seems to have amazed even the two protagonists themselves every day, to the point of bringing them to amaze the world with their love.

Marco Sammicheli, Director of the Museo del Design Italiano, stated, "The exhibition was conceived as a kaleidoscope where emotions, public life, private life and photographs all merge to tell a story that mingles emotions, landscapes and monuments. Places, people, architecture and moments of life become simultaneously protagonists and background of a narrative that spans the lifetime of a great master of architecture and design such as Ettore Sottsass."

The exhibition brings together approximately 1200 photographs, both black- and-white and colour, taken between 1976 and 2007, that is, from the year that Ettore met Barbara Radice to the year he died. They provide a wide-ranging view of the couple's private and public life, at home and around the world, for work and for pleasure, with little distinction made between public and private. The photos were taken all over the world, from Milan to Filicudi, the United States to French Polynesia, from India to Iran and Syria. The title of the exhibition, Mise en scène, refers to Sottsass's idea that life, not unlike Commedia dell'Arte, resembles a largely improvised "staging" of a sketchily outlined plot.

On the occasion of the exhibition Ettore Sottsass. Mise en scène, a book has been published by Dario Cimorelli, featuring Italian/English texts by Stefano Boeri, Barbara Radice, Christoph Radl and Micaela Sessa. The institutional partners Deloitte and Fondazione Deloitte, Lavazza Group and Salone del Mobile.Milano have supported Triennale Milano once again in this exhibition.