Katia Porro

What is "terrazzo"? In Italian, “terrazzo” means a terrace, a place where one goes to sit and chat, or to observe passively.

In English, “terrazzo” is the word for a low-cost composite material. In the realm of postmodernism, the materiality of terrazzo made sense: it was a material composed of fragments that reflected the fragmentation of the time. Thus, the word also lends itself well to the title of a magazine that is an eclectic composite of history. In Terrazzo we can see the fragments of the past now being reclaimed for order and merging with the contemporary moment.

Terrazzo (1988-1996), created by Ettore Sottsass and edited by his wife Barbara Radice, was a publication that explored architecture and design. The content of the magazine was eclectic and covered topics from prehistory to their contemporary moment. Indeed, the magazine’s eclecticism stayed in tune with the fragmentation of the postmodern period, however it lacked the irony that was so prevalent of the time.

If postmodernism was defined by an eclectic usage of historicism, applied to architecture and design in an ironical way, then Terrazzo must be placed at the end of the often-contentious period. The eclecticism remains, but the irony disappears and we arrive at a return to order through the lens of a magazine. In Terrazzo, the past is used to inform the present. In a sense, the publication elevates contemporary practices to be regarded in the same light as historical moments. The ironic and playful decade of the eighties comes to a close as the debris of memory is collected in a return to order.