Functional, Clear and Unobtrusive: Design from Germany
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Whether it is Milan, Miami or Basle, the world’s most important design fairs these days are all focused on what is called high-end design –rare, expensive and above all only available in a limited series. It has been the main factor affecting the way people view the sector for quite some time and in fact somehow contradicts its original purpose – the industrially manufactured mass-product. The only country whose design culture seems to have been left untouched by this development seems to be Germany. German design functions, is technically sophisticated and radiates a cool, no-nonsense image. This newly established affinity of design to the realm of art can be felt all over the world. It seems that in these globalised times it is only the “spectacular” that has any chance at all of drawing enough attention to itself. Somehow one just cannot get away from the idea that classical industrial design is on the best way to eliminating itself. At the 2008 furniture design fair in Milan however there were signs that a different approach was being embarked upon. Alongside all those designers whose interest is mainly centred on the event, there are still a few who still have an almost old-fashioned, serious approach to their profession. A seriousness that is to be found for example in the design of the Myto chair by Konstantin Grcic for the Plank company. What was it that made him such an exception at the Milan fair? Surprising combinations
These days there are thousands of cantilever chairs around, good ones and bad ones, but the last designer to produce one in plastic – at that time a somewhat brittle material – was Verner Panton 40 years ago. The plastics of today however have different properties that allow for new designs and innovative construction techniques. It is now possible to create forms and products that are geared to our times; products that can enrich our daily lives in ways that are fresh and invigorating. It is of no coincidence that Stefan Diez, who worked with Grcic for a while, is also active in the same field. The difference with him however is that he more often than not gets the ideas for his designs from the materials themselves. With the passion of a researcher Diez sounds out the possibilities of the materials, enabling him to hit upon some surprising combinations. He never allows them to become an end in themselves, but lets them, for example, develop new product typologies, like the series he designed for Rosenthal – genio. Here he combined porcelain and metal in such a way that the “pot” can be used to first cook the food and then serve it at the table. Diez’s products are always logical and consistently designed with the user in mind. He recently designed a bentwood chair for Thonet - the Form 404. Working in a milieu full of all the great names in modernist design, he still succeeded in wresting something new out of both the form and the material. He launched an innovative approach that nevertheless – and this is his forté – manages to pit itself admirably against all the other classic bentwood chair designs. Problem solving for the human being
For quite some time now Diez and Grcic have been winning prizes all over the place and have become internationally renowned. And yet, like many other German designers of their generation, they are imbibed with the tradition of a specifically German approach to design; an idea that originally came about in the first few decades of the 20th century that – in simple terms – defines design first and foremost as a means of solving problems for the human being. The Deutsche Werkbund (German association of architects, designers and industrialists) , founded in 1907, the Bauhaus of the 1920s and the Ulmer Hochschule (Ulm University School of Design) of the 1950s and 1960s were the most influential institutions for the Modernists who were pursuing the idea of an all-embracing design of the environment.
For over 50 years there have been various design promotion institutions that have been responsible for getting this message across – like the Rat für Formgebung (German Design Council), the Design Centre in Stuttgart or the International Design Centre in Berlin.
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The bottom line of their message is – design is there to provide solutions for the interaction between man and product and – in a much wider sense – solutions for the socio-cultural changes that our industrial society has undergone. This approach is still, even today, one of the main factors that has enabled German design to develop its cool, no-nonsense image.
Cool, no-nonsense aesthetics
Emotions have never really been the order of the day in the field of German product design. Even when it comes to an admittedly highly emotional product like the Porsche 911, its creator, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, actually intended to design as neutral a vehicle as possible. He failed, but what he created has become an icon. The car has had more or less the same design for 45 years. There are of course other “long-sellers” beside the sports car from Stuttgart that have promoted the image of German design. Peter Raacke’s Mono A-Besteck (1959), Günter Kupetz’s mineral-water bottle (1969) or Rolf Heide’s SL wall unit for interlübke (1963) all became everyday icons because even up to the present day the clarity of their design has prevented them from suffering hardly any visual wear and tear.
Materials of modernity
It is this clarity in particular that helped German design to quickly make an international name for itself. One of the main reasons why the success of so many products from the consumer and investment goods industry can be traced back to the fact that they were so easy to integrate into the everyday routine of life in western industrial society. Steel, plywood, plastics and glass form the range of materials used by German design. They are the materials of the modernist age that have been used all over the industrialised world and in their national anonymity also possess a huge symbolic force. The globalised product had already become reality long before the discussion on what such a product would look like gained momentum.
International interest in German design
For quite a few years now we have been seeing an increased interest in German design. An Apple iPod could be any shape, as the microchip inside does not actually require any special shape conducive to sensible design and this is why the British designer, Jonathan Ive, chose a style of design that was amazingly similar to Dieter Rams’ designs for Braun in the 1960s. Peter Schreyer’s Audi TT from the year 1998 was most probably the first product to get the global designer community to focus on Germany again. Schreyer managed to make the post-modern of today look like the classical modern of the past century – a car that was so radically and simply constructed from circular shapes as if it had emerged from the futuristic laboratories of the Bauhaus.
The brand-name prevails
The truth is however that this inclination towards the unassuming is still one of the most striking features of the world of German design. This not only applies to products, but also to their protagonists. Designers who come to the fore with the air of the artist are still few and far between. Luigi Colani might possibly be a rare and always highly controversial exception in his own country. Jil Sander, too, in the field of fashion. Even Dieter Rams, the definitive designer in the realm of technical minimalism, is only an icon for the international design community, maybe followed closely by the aforementioned Konstantin Grcic for the following generation. When it comes to German design it is still the brand-name that prevails. Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Dornbracht, Erco, interlübke, Miele, Rosenthal, WMF – to name but a few – are first and foremost “anonymous” industrial brand-names, i.e. the personalities working for them behind the scenes are known to only a few. The thing that is so specifically German about them – there is hardly any other country that has such strong brand-names with their own stand-alone image. Today their unmistakable design enables them to communicate attractive values, lifestyles and identification patterns to global target groups. Not spectacular, but always identifiable, making them globally competitive.
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Andrej Kupetz
is chief executive and technical manger of the Rat für Formgebung (German Design Council) and writes for design magazines like design report, form , etc.
Copyright: Goethe-Institut, Online-Redaktion
Oktober 2008
is chief executive and technical manger of the Rat für Formgebung (German Design Council) and writes for design magazines like design report, form , etc.
Copyright: Goethe-Institut, Online-Redaktion
Oktober 2008
