Riccardo Blumer (born 1959) is a Swiss–Italian architect, designer and educator known for exploring lightness, structure and efficiency in both buildings and furniture. Born in Bergamo, he studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano, graduating in the early 1980s, and worked from 1983 to 1988 in the office of Mario Botta in Lugano before opening his own practice in the Varese area. His work ranges from residential and industrial buildings to interiors and product design for companies such as Alias, Artemide, Desalto, Poliform, Flou and B&B Italia.
In 1996 Blumer designed the lightweight Laleggera chair for Alias, which received the Compasso d’Oro award in 1998 and later entered museum collections, becoming a key reference in contemporary Italian seating design. Alongside practice he has developed a parallel career as a teacher and researcher, teaching at the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio and other institutions, where he uses experimental “exercises” and installations to investigate the relationship between structure, movement and architectural form.
