Richard Sapper 1932-2015

"Well, all you have to do is design one Tizio lamp..."

What architect or designer hasn't said this to another architect or designer at one point or another. Design the 'killer app' of products and you are set for life. Possibly true, but not quite as simple as 'designing one Tizio lamp'.

Richard Sapper, designer of the Tizio lamp, died on the very last day of 2015, making a neat exit from a very neat life. He worked for Daimler Benz before moving to Milan to work for Gio Ponti (always a smart move) and ultimately teaming with Marco Zanuso to create some of the best pieces of design thinking in the 20th century.

In an almost Einstein-ian gesture he combined Light, Speed, Mass and Time (in just the pieces to the left) to establish a veritable design theory of relativity. This may only be possible because he was German, but his ideas are so utterly tempered, finessed and caressed by the Italian context in which he designed.