Tower Furniture for the House with the Little Chinese Girl, Mario Tchou Residence, Milan
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Sottsass designed the interiors of Mario Tchou’s Milan apartment and named the project for Tchou’s daughter, who captured his heart as she attempted to scale the Tower. The latticework, dowels, and cubic proportions suggest the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement, the Wiener Werkstätte, and the Bauhaus. These interests merge with Eastern touches—the Chinese red and black lacquer, gold leaf, and pagoda construction—into a hybrid table/desk/shelf/cabinet/chest of drawers, a catch-all for the needs of daily life. Sottsass wrote in Domus, "The fact remains that a piece of furniture could be like architecture, with windows from which to look outside. . . . The piece of furniture can be looked at in many ways, always changing." The Tower, in short, is a kind of perception machine for the interior of the home.
Artwork Details
- Title: Tower Furniture for the House with the Little Chinese Girl, Mario Tchou Residence, Milan
- Designer: Ettore Sottsass (Italian (born Austria), Innsbruck 1917–2007 Milan)
- Maker: Renzo Brugola (Italian)
- Date: 1960–1963
- Medium: Wood, paint and gold leaf
- Classification: Furniture
- Credit Line: Courtesy of the Brant Foundation, Greenwich, Connecticut
- Rights and Reproduction: Studio Ettore Sottsass Srl
Photo Courtesy of Galleria Giustini Stagetti - Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art