“You don’t save your soul just painting everything white,” wrote the Italian architect Ettore Sottsass (1917–2007). He was referring to the rise of minimalism in design, which proliferated across Europe in the 1960s and 70s. Sottsass’s own work—in jewelry, glass, lighting, and homeware—was devoted to brash color, pop-inflected shapes, and fun. He opened his first studio in Milan in 1947, then joined the contemporary furniture company Poltronova. Hired by Olivetti, he designed typewriters, staplers, and filing cabinets that gave offices a sense of cool—no simple task. Then he reinvented himself again, moving away from consumer products. “I didn’t want to do [that] any more,” Sottsass said at the time. “Because it is clear the consumerist attitude is dangerous.” Raisonné presents over 100 works that span the entirety of his career. —Elena Clavarino