Oliferenko

Reliquary for the hair of the right hand of my father, Ettore Sottsass, architect, resting on his death bed at 4.12pm on October 29, 1954.

With his right hand my father drew innumerable lines, angles, circles, and diagonals, using all kinds of pencils, rulers, and shiny black inks; with watercolour he painted perspectives of entire cities, apartment blocks, houses, and tombstones; he spent hours and hours erasing mistaken plans; he measured heights, breadths, and thicknesses; he shook hands with friends and enemies, with happy people, nervous people, self-assured people, frightened and unhappy people; he caressed my mother’s hair and mine too when I was a child to reassure me; he hammered nails, and screwed in screws; he opened bottles of wine and bottles of mineral water; he did up his skis the memorable day he skied the thirty kilometer cross-country race, and at 4.12pm, on October 29, 1954, he slowly beckoned to me to come closer, at the moment he knew he had to say goodbye.

Taken from Ettore Sottsass, Metaphors.