Marco Zanuso

Considered a founding father of Italian industrial design, Marco Zanuso was one of the first designers to take an interest in the problems of product industrialization and the application of new materials and technologies to common everyday objects. His innovative and visionary thinking allowed him to create some of the most iconic and important objects in design history.

Zanuso was born in Milan in 1916 and died in 2001. An Italian designer, architect, urban planner and lecturer, during his long career he won countless awards and accolades such as seven Compasso d'Oro and six awards at the Milan Triennale. Many of his products are now on display in the Triennale's permanent design collection and at the New York Museum of Modern Art. 

Receiving his degree in architecture in 1939 from the Milan Polytechnic University, Marco Zanuso had a long and intense professional career that saw him involved in different design areas. After opening his own architectural studio in 1945, he was commissioned by Arflex in the immediate post-war period to create numerous chairs that were enormously successful. From here onward his prolific career advanced, oriented towards industrial design which led him to collaborate often with Richard Sapper, creating a series of products that are symbolic of the era’s design and more.

Several of these products allowed Zanuso to win numerous awards confirming him as one of the undisputed leading figures of industrial design. Another prolific and important collaboration was with the Brionvega company, a manufacturer of electronic devices, for which, together with Richard Sapper, he created televisions and radios that marked an era entering the homes of all Italians.