Of the industrial designers Knoll employed during the latter 20th century, Richard Sapper distinguished himself as a truly skilled product designer as opposed to a dedicated furniture designer. In the early 1950s he enrolled at the University of Munich. He was a student in search of what interested him, studying a variety of disciplines, but focused on business and then graduated.
Having an inherent low boredom threshold, Sapper spent only two years working at Mercedes-Benz before moving to Milan to work in the offices of Gio Ponti, architect and designer. Later, when Sapper met Marco Zanuso, an architect and designer, he was immediately comfortable and with someone he could collaborate with. They worked on many successful consumer products—radios, televisions, clocks, kitchen small appliances–that also won design awards.
Sapper’s first furniture design with Zanuso was the Lambda chair of stamped sheet steel for Gavina, introduced in 1963.1 Still, the products that Sapper designed, both with Zanuso and from his own design office, were an eclectic mix. In 1971, Sapper was hired by the lighting company Artemide, to produce a new desktop lamp. His solution was named Tizio, which has sold more than one and a half million lamps.
Sapper’s design reputation came to the attention of Robert Cadwallader, president of Knoll. Although Knoll had the Morrison-Hannah office chair, Zapf chair and stalwart Saarinen, Pollock, Petitt and Pearson chairs, Cadwallader sought a new chair design and prepared a design brief that ultimately would was sent to both Neils Diffrient and Richard Sapper.2 The brief called for three basic configurations: a highback executive chair, a management chair, and a side chair with sled-type base. Additionally, each chair would be available with and without arms.
Sapper was based in Milan, Italy and he and his wife lived in an apartment there. Later, they would purchase a home in the Hollywood Hills, overlooking Los Angeles. Sapper’s design work on the chair for Knoll took place in Milan, and the first design patents of the chair were filed in Italy in 1977.3
Perhaps for this reason, the Sapper Chair was first introduced by Knoll International in Italy in 1979, but was not sold in the United States until the early 1980s.4 This may have been due to the fact Knoll introduced the Diffrient Seating Collection in 1979. Knoll did not include the Sapper Chair Collection in the KnollStudio Price List but only in the Contract Price List, and later the Office Seating Price List.5
1. Michael Webb, Richard Sapper. (San Francisco: Chronicle Books LLC, 2002). 40.
2. Brian Lutz, Knoll – A Modernist Universe. (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2010) 196.
3. Sapper, Richard. Arm-Chair. US Des. 260,056, filed March 1, 1978 and issued August 4, 1981. This design patent was of the management chair with the exterior design and details complete. It listed the Foreign Application Priority date of Sept. 5, 1977 in Italy.
4. Lutz, 196. Author states chair was introduced in the United States in 1983 and remained in production through 2010 which was the year of the book’s publication. The Sapper executive (highback) and management chairs were listed in the Knoll Office Seating Price List 2012.
5. The Sapper executive (Highback) and management chairs were listed in the Knoll Office Seating Price List 2012.