Matteo Thun

Architect; Interior Designer; Product/Industrial Designer; Lighting Designer / Italy / Matteo Thun & Partners

www.matteothun.com

Architect and designer Matteo Thun, born in Bolzano, Italy (1952), studied at the Academy of Salzburg with Oskar Kokoschka and at the University of Florence. In Milan, with Ettore Sottsass, he founded the Memphis group and was a partner of Sottsass Associati from 1980 to 1984. He taught design from 1983 to 2000 at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna (Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst). From 1990 to 1993 he served as art director for Swatch before opening his own office in Milan in 1984.

In 2001 he founded Matteo Thun & Partners, working internationally on architectural, interior, and product design projects, ranging from a small to large scale, in collaboration with partners Luca Colombo, Herbert Rathmaier, and Antonio Rodriguez. The office includes a team of 50 international professionals, architects, interior designers, product designers, and graphic designers. The continuous interdisciplinary challenge is the successful formula of the office.

Matteo Thun has won the ADI Compasso d’Oro Award for design excellence three times as well as the Wallpaper* Design Award in 2010. The recipient of many other awards, Thun was given the Interior Innovation Award by the German Design Council in 2013; won the Good Design Award in 2011 for Onto, designed for Duravit; the Simon Taylor Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2011 from  Designer Magazine; and the Good Design Award in 2012 for the Savoy line and the Green Good Design Award in 2011  for the Isy System—both designed for Zucchetti. Thun’s Side Hotel in Hamburg was chosen as Hotel of the Year in 2001, the Vigilius mountain resort won the Wallpaper* Design Award in 2004, and the Radisson SAS Frankfurt was recognized by Worldwide Hospitality Awards as the best hotel opened in 2005. He was awarded the Prix Acier for the Hugo Boss Strategic Business Unit in Switzerland in 2007.

Matteo Thun was inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame in New York in December 2004 and is a member of RIBA, the Royal Association of British Architects.

In April 2013, Hatje Cantz published Matteo Thun: The Index Book, a comprehensive selection of Matteo Thun's architecture and product design achievements from his earliest works to the present.

comments powered by Disqus

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

Order the book.

Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

Order the book.

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

Order the book.

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

Order the book.