Richard Sapper

Richard Sapper (30 May 1932 – 31 December 2015) was a German industrial designer who was based in Milan for much of his career. He is considered to be one of the most influential figures of post-war design. His products typically feature a combination of technical innovation, simplicity of form, and an element of wit and surprise.

Sapper received numerous awards and distinctions, including 11 Compasso d'Oro awards, the Raymond Loewy Foundation's , and the German Order of Merit. Examples of his work are in museums such as the Victoria and Albert and Design Museum in London, the Pompidou Center in Paris, the ADI Design Museum in Milan, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York – which has over 17 of his designs in its collection.

Life and career He was born in Munich on 30 May 1932. He studied a number of subjects at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München including philosophy, anatomy and engineering, before graduating with a business degree.

After beginning his career as a designer in the styling department at Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart, Sapper relocated to Milan in 1958, where he initially joined the offices of architect Gio Ponti, and subsequently the design department of La Rinascente. The pair were hired in 1959 as consultants to Brionvega, an Italian company that manufactured well-designed electronics that competed with products from Japan and Germany. Together they designed a series of radios, televisions, and other consumer electronics that became enduring icons. Amongst their more well known designs were the rounded, compact and portable Doney 14 (1962), the first television to feature completely transistorized construction, and the radio (1965), a rectangular box with hinges that upon opening reveals speakers and controls. Using the aesthetic of sculptural minimalism, they created the compact folding Grillo telephone for Siemens and Italtel in 1965. The Grillo was the first telephone featuring the flip-down mouthpiece, a precursor to the clamshell designs of later mobile phones. for which he won his first Compasso d'Oro award in 1960. It is still in production today. It is in the design collection of numerous museums including the Metropolitain Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Sapper continued to create design classics including the Sapper Office Chair series for Knoll in 1979, a series of stop watches for Heuer in 1976 and the Nena folding chair for B&B Italia in 1984. This minimalistic box would reveal a surprise inside: a small red button amidst the keyboard which would serve to control the screen cursor. (no longer in production), a lightweight bicycle designed with aircraft technology to achieve the required strength and speed acceleration, which can fold as quickly and simply as an umbrella and easily fit into a car trunk.

Sapper was made an Honorary Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts in the United Kingdom in 1988, and he was a Member of the Academy of Arts in Germany.

Awards and honours

1960 Compasso d'Oro, Lorenz table clock 1966 Gold Medal, Ljubljana Biennale of Design, TS 502 radio (with Marco Zanuso) 1967 Compasso d'Oro, Grillo telephone (with Marco Zanuso) 1968 Gold Medal, Ljubljana Biennale of Design, Grillo telephone (with Marco Zanuso) 1973 Gold Medal, Ljubljana Biennale of Design, Rocket digital clock 1973 Honorable Mention, Ljubljana Biennale of Design, Black 201 television (with Marco Zanuso) 1979 Compasso d'Oro, 9090 Coffee maker 1987 Compasso d'Oro, From 9 to 5 office furniture system 1988 Appointed Honorary Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts, London 1992 Raymond Loewy Foundation Lucky Strike Award 1994 Compasso d'Oro, IBM Leapfrog computer 1998 Compasso d'Oro, Cobàn coffee machine 1998 Compasso d'Oro, Zoombike folding bicycle 2001 Elected to the Akademie der Künste, Berlin 2004 Compasso d'Oro (jury member) 2009 German Design Council lifetime achievement award 2010 Honorary Doctorate from the North Carolina State University 2012 Merit Cross of the Order of Merit, Germany 2014 Compasso d'Oro Career Award

Personal life He married Dorit Polz on January 16, 1963, in Stuttgart. They have 3 children (two girls and a boy), and three grandchildren.

Publications Jonathan Olivares, Richard Sapper, Phaidon Press, New York, London 2016 Michael Webb, Richard Sapper, Chronicle Books, San Francisco 2002 Uta Brandes, Richard Sapper: Tools for Life, Steidl Verlag, Goettingen 1993 Hans Höger, Tizio Light by Richard Sapper (Design Classics), Verlag form, Hamburg 1997 Siegfried Gronert, The 9090 Cafetiere by Richard Sapper (Design Classics), Verlag form, Hamburg 1998 Richard Sapper, Michael Horsham, The International Design Yearbook 1998, Laurence King, London 1998