Born in Munich in 1932, Richard Sapper started his working life in the Mercedes Benz project department in 1956 and in 1958 moved to Milan where he worked for Gio Ponti and later Rinascente.
Together with Marco Zanuso, he designed radio and TV sets for Brionvega, the Grillo phone set for Siemens and various pieces of furniture, lamps etc. From 1970 to 1976 he was a design consultant for automobiles with Fiat and Pirelli and later with IBM all over the world.
In 1970 Richard Sapper opened his design practice in Stuttgart, and designed the high-tech "Tizio" work lamp for Artemide in 1972. From 1986 he taught at the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in Wien. He won for ten times the Compasso d'Oro. He has been interested in designing technically complex objects, ranging from ships to watches.