Ettore Sottsass was born in Innsbruck in 1917, he is known the world over as one of the initiators of the revolution in architecture and design which led away from the rigid functionalism of the years before and following the Second World War. A great and influential maestro of Italian design, the energy of his language and the vitality of his color and line contrast sharply with any intellectualism and rigidity. He died in December 2007.