Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Tower Furniture for the House with the Little Chinese Girl, Mario Tchou Residence, Milan
Designer Ettore Sottsass Italian, born Austria
Renzo Brugola Italian
Not on view
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.
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