Throughout his illustrious career in product design and architecture, Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007) maintained a close relationship with printed matter, designing, authoring, illustrating and editing a great many avant-garde literary and design/architectural books and periodicals from 1947 right up until the year before his death.

Books by Ettore Sottsass organizes this vast body of work into eight phases: the 1962 Beat magazine Room East 128.Chronicle; books by poets Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen and Sottsass himself, published under the Editions East 128 imprint; the psychedelic magazine Pianeta Fresco, which printed Beats alongside emerging comic artists; work for architecture and design magazines; Sottsass’ own theoretical writings; catalogues produced for the Memphis Group; the magazine Terrazzo (1988-1995), which synthesized Sottsass’ love of design, literature and architecture; and publications for his own Studio Sottsass Associati.