Foto dal finestrino, Ettore Sottsass

Born from an idea by Stefano Boeri, “Pictures from the window” was a Domus column from 2003 to 2006, for the first time in this short but intense volume, small and variegated stories find an aggregate form.
“Pictures from the window” is a collection of snapshots, with related captions, worlds and reality that few are able to see, but even more to observe, assimilate and de-scribe in such an immediate and essential way.
An almost random succession of themes, characterizes these pages made of reflec-tions on: the solitudes of worldliness, traditions around the world, traces left by man, quotes and stories, caught and put together almost in a disordered way!
Twenty-eight images taken by the same Ettore Sottsass that tell the reality, and tell it twice: with the images and the fabulous captions that make it outfit. Twenty-six photos that strike even more because accompanied by the author’s reflections.
These are images and words in freedom, the discovery that Ettore Sottsass as well as being an architect and a photographer was also a traveler who captures the moments of reality that surrounds it by amplifying the experience with the written word: ironic reflections, thoughts of all kinds ! Short reports of many places in the world: people, places, sculptures, buildings, arts described with irony and curiosities typical of an architect! All put together in this pleasant little book that gives it great capacity for reflection, almost meditative.
A hidden world that no one else has been able to see except an original and dominant personality capable of poetry and essentiality.

And reflections like this is right to emphasize:
“There have been and there are cultures for which the activity that today we call” art “did not produce and does not necessarily produce galleries, shops, auctions, or the general market. There have existed and still exist cultures, even very sophisticated, in which sculpting sculptures or painting stories had and did not have as a final stop the market, cultures in which a sculpture or painting does not end up becoming “a product” but is content to report secret stories or mysterious memories or visions …. ” words with which describing an image communicates an entire vision of art and culture.

Short stories until the train, entering the station, slows down to get down and return to reality. Thanks for this trip Ettore, we should all try to do this experiment!