Victor J. Papanek (1923–1998), designer, teacher and author, was born in Vienna, Austria in 1923, emigrating to the United States in 1939 following the Anschluss of Austria to Nazi Germany. Educated at Cooper Union and MIT, Papanek was briefly a student of Frank Lloyd Wright early in his career and he became a follower and ally of Buckminster Fuller who wrote the preface to the first English language edition of Papanek’s seminal publication Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change (1971). The book’s groundbreaking ideas and uncompromising critique of contemporary design culture initially divided the design community. Ultimately, however, the polemic was a huge success; translated into twenty-three languages it remains one of the most widely read design books to date.

Papanek’s other publications (co-authored with James Hennessey) includeNomadic Furniture I (1973), Nomadic Furniture II (1974); How Things Don’t Work(1977). He is sole author of Design For Human Scale (1983) and The Green Imperative (1995).

In the course of his career, which lasted into the late 1990s, Papanek applied the principles of socially responsible design in collaborative projects with concerns such as UNESCO and the World Health Organization. He consistently strove to use design as a force for the improvement of life quality in developing countries and peripheral communities in Europe and the US. He travelled and published widely, and through intensive research incorporated the aesthetics and practices of vernacular design into his thinking and teaching.