Marco Zanuso (1916-2001) & Richard Sapper (1932-2015) Biography
Marco Zanuso (1916 - 2001) was one of the most important Italian designers of the 20th century, known for his ability to combine aesthetics and functionality in innovative and iconic design objects. His career has been characterized by constant technological and material research, often accompanied by collaboration with other designers such as Richard Sapper. Marco Zanuso was born in Milan on 14 May 1916 and studied architecture at the Polytechnic, graduating in 1939. The year before graduating he participated together with Gianni Albricci, Augusto Magnaghi, Mario Terzaghi and Pier Italo Trolli in the competition for the redevelopment of Piazza del Duomo in Milan. It will only be with the end of the Second World War that Marco Zanuso will begin to work. He has worked in many sectors, from industrial product design to architecture and land planning, without limits of scale. He was considered one of the most important figures in the architectural debate and reconstruction of Milan in the post-war period. Marco Zanuso was a pioneer in the design of plastic furniture and was very active in the design of industrial products for many Italian companies, including Olivetti, Borletti and Brionvega. He has also worked on architectural projects for public and residential buildings in Italy and abroad. Marco Zanuso was the curator of the first exhibition on Italian design in London in 1955, at the Italian Cultural Institute. Furthermore, he was one of the organizers of the International Industrial Design Exhibition at the IX Triennale of Milan in 1957. Starting in the early 1960s, he began his university career at the Polytechnic of Milan, where he taught artistic design for the industry, scenography, architectural technology and industrial design. The collaboration with Richard Sapper, which began in 1957, was very fruitful. Together they created several products between 1962 and 1969 including the Doney television, the K 1340 chairs, the Grillo telephone, the Sirius television, the Black television and the cubo radio, the latter three designed for Brionvega. In 1978 the MoMa in New York dedicated the exhibition Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper: Selections from the Design Collection to the two designers, which included televisions, household appliances, chairs and a variety of other objects designed by Zanuso and Sapper, working both individually and in collaboration, from 1959 to 1978. The exhibition highlights the ways in which Zanuso and Sapper's designs manifest an understanding of the relationship between user and object, embodying what Zanuso called the "metaphorical quality that objects have for those who use them" .
