Everyday classics
Born in Munich in Germany, Richard Sapper (1932–2015) was one of the most important international designers of the 20th century, creating modern everyday classics. Alongside his successful designs for Brionvega, such as the "Doney" television and the TS 502 folding radio, Sapper's best-known works include the functional Tizio task light, which he developed for Artemide in 1972, the playful 9091 "Bollitore" kettle with its melodic whistle for Alessi (1983), and various seating designs for Kartell, Magis and Knoll.
After studying mechanical engineering and economics, Sapper began his career as a designer in 1956 in the design department at Mercedes-Benz, where until 1958 he worked on projects including the door handles and wing mirrors for the legendary Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster.
Sapper then moved to Italy, where he worked in the studios of Gio Ponti, Marco Zanuso and Alberto Rosselli in Milan in Italy, and designed products such as the Transmaster radio for the Italian department store chain La Rinascente. Until the end of the 1960s, he worked as a designer for many Italian companies, and in 1960 he received his first Compasso d'Oro – an award he received six times in total by 1998.
In 1970, Sapper set up his own studio in Stuttgart in Germany. In the same year, he also began working as a design consultant in Fiat's experimental vehicle department (until 1976), as well as in the research department of the tyre manufacturer Pirelli.
In the 1980s, as a consultant designer for IBM, Richard Sapper played a key role in the design of IBM computers and notebooks. After various guest lectureships in Vienna, Austria, and Brissago, Switzerland, he was appointed professor at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts in 1986. In 1993, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, USA, dedicated a solo exhibition to him.
Award-winning design
Sapper received numerous international awards for his designs, including the Compasso d'Oro six times, the Gute Form award twice (1969 and 1983) and two gold medals at the Biennial of Industrial Design in Ljubljana, Slovenia (1973 and 1979). In 1992, the Raymond Loewy Foundation presented Sapper with the Lucky Strike Designer Award '92. Many of Sapper's designs are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others.
"Giving form a meaning" is how Sapper described his methodical approach, distancing himself from the tradition of German functionalists and their guiding principle of "form follows function".
