Torsten Fritze

Torsten Fritze | Studio & Partners

Torsten Fritze is founder and managing partner of Studio & Partners based in Milan. He lives in Cernobbio, Lake Como.

Born 1959 in Hamburg and following an Internship at Conran Design, he obtained his bachlor's in industrial design engineering at Central St. Martins in London. In 1984 he attended Milan’s Domus Academy, where he completed his master's under Mario Bellini and Andrea Branzi, followed by a marketing degree from the city’s SDA Bocconi.

He then joined King Miranda Associates, before moving to San Francisco to work as a senior designer at frog design in 1988, where his clients included Logitech, Sun Microsystems and Steve Jobs NeXT.

Three years later, Philips Electronics recruited him as design manager for Audio Products—and subsequently its Communication Products Division—in Asian manufacturing sites and at the corporate headquarters where, in 1992, he participated in a strategic repositioning project with Arthur D. Little.

In 1993 Michele De Lucchi invited him to join Studio De Lucchi as a partner, where he assumed responsibility for the Olivetti Design Group. In 1998 Michele De Lucchi, Nicholas Bewick and Fritze established Studio & Partners as new vehicle for their collaboration. Since 2010 Fritze has been the company’s sole partner. He has a keen interest in academics and has been involved with the European Commisson’s I-Cube project and with various teaching assignments among them as a visiting professor at the HfbK Hamburg.

Studio & Partners focuses its creative activity in the areas of industrial design and branded environments. Applying its unique cultural engineering philosophy—blending socio-cultural trends, technological innovation, economics and design—Studio & Partners conceives portfolio strategies, store concepts/brand architecture and designs products as well as interiors.

Studio & Partners international clients include Barclays Bank, Beiersdorf, British Council, Cisco, Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Post, blu Telecom, Hager, Haworth, Hansestadt Hamburg, iGuzzini, Lufthansa, Marazzi, Münchner Rück, norisbank, Republic of Turkey, stilwerk, 3M, 3 Telecom, Trilux, TUI, Unifor and Zumtobel.