Marco Zanuso (14 May 1916 – 11 July 2001) was an Italian architect and designer associated with modernism.

Marco Zanuso was born in Milan, Italy, on 14 May 1916. He was part of a group of Milanese designers who helped shape the international concept of "good design" in the postwar years. He began studying architecture at the Politecnico di Milano in 1934 and graduated in 1939. During the Second World War, he served in the Italian Navy. After the war, in 1945, he established his own design office.

From the beginning of his career, Zanuso was active in architectural and design discourse. He served as editor of Domus from 1947 to 1949, and of Casabella from 1952 to 1956. In collaboration with Ernesto Nathan Rogers and others, he contributed to developing the theories and ideals of the modern design movement. As a professor of architecture, design, and urban planning at the Politecnico di Milano from the late 1940s until the 1980s, and as a founding member of the Associazione per il Disegno Industriale (ADI) in the 1950s, he influenced a new generation of Italian designers.

Zanuso's career spanned more than six decades. His focus on rational design as a means of problem-solving allowed him to explore new approaches in urban planning, architecture, and product design. He described his "inquisitiveness" as a driving force behind a "constant search for a new discovery". His method of "finding order in complexity" fostered openness to technological innovation, new materials, and functional aesthetics that aimed to enhance human experience.

Throughout his career, Zanuso collaborated with historians such as Giulio Carlo Argan, Domenico Pica, and Luigi Veronesi, with critics including Bruno Zevi and Gillo Dorfles, and with architects such as Ernesto Nathan Rogers and Gio Ponti. His association with Rogers was particularly significant, leading to his editorial roles at Domus and Casabella and to early essays in which his approach to modernism was articulated.

In 1957, Zanuso began a long-term partnership with German designer Richard Sapper. One of their first projects was a small, stackable plastic chair for children, designed for Kartell. The chair was light, functional, and playful, produced in several bright colours, and contributed to the acceptance of plastic as a material suitable for modern domestic furniture.

Zanuso and Sapper were appointed consultants to Brionvega in 1959. The company aimed to create stylish electronics to rival those produced in Japan and Germany. Together they designed radios and televisions that became emblematic of "techno-functionalism". Their "Doney 14" (Compasso d'Oro, 1962), the first completely transistor television, and the compact folding "Grillo" telephone for Siemens (1966), were among their most influential works. The Grillo was one of the first telephones to integrate the dial and earpiece into a single unit.

In 1971, Zanuso was invited to deliver a lecture in the Dunhill industrial design series in Australia. The following year, he and Sapper created modular dwellings for the exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape at the MoMA in New York. Each unit could be unfolded into a living space complete with facilities and accessories of a small apartment. Zanuso described the project as "designed for all situations that require immediately available, easily transportable living quarters".^{[citation needed]}