Overcoming Invisibility – German Furniture Design
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Furniture design from Germany? The question still puts expressions of great perplexity on the faces of the international design community. German cars – of course, technically superior design of consumer goods and machinery – goes without saying, but furniture design? Everyone can think of a few classics, but actually they were designed ages ago. Everything that comes afterwards is like a terra incognita. That’s not fair, say the experts, because right now there is new territory to be discovered between Rheda-Wiedenbrück and Coburg, Hamburg and Munich.
There is some truth in the image of the great unknown with which the German furniture market presents us. But this existence in the shadow of Italy – the major benchmark when it comes to design comparison – is not so much the result of a lack of industrial furniture production – this is far bigger, more active and more comprehensive when it comes to vertical integration in the clusters of Eastern Westphalia, Franconia or Württemberg than for instance in the supposed furniture design paradise of Italy. Neither is it caused by German designers not having the skill to produce innovative design – that too can be filed away with the myths in view of the long-term success with the typological new territory of furniture. Limited marketing structure
The reason why people tend to perceive German furniture design as weak by international comparison is because of the manufacturers’ limited marketing structure in this country. For most medium-sized furniture producers, the German domestic market has been enough until now, and export was at most a question of how to organise the supply of goods to the Benelux countries. Sales of large areas of German furniture production are still organised through purchasing associations today.
The many items of upholstered furniture, display units, tables or kitchens that are designed and produced in the German province end up as decent-quality but nameless products in the furniture stores of this republic. It is only those who have wanted to break out of this system with enterprising farsightedness and perseverance and have always been looking for their market in the big wide world who have made it with real brands. It is by no means the largest and most economically successful ones, but surprisingly or even precisely for this reason it is the ones who have committed themselves to a design idea, an unmistakeable signature, and – unbelievable though it may sound – use the fundamental ideas of German design as a basis: a holistic, systematic approach, functionality, design innovation, quality. Technical innovation
In the early days of German furniture design there was a technical innovation that brought with it a formal radicalism and is even today considered to be the birth of the entire discipline of German industrial design per se. In the 1840s, entrepreneur Michael Thonet in Boppard on the Rhine perfected the technique of bending beech in steam for industrial purposes. The bentwood chair came into being and with it a typical design that has lasted until today. It was a form that virtually resulted from the production methods that raised this chair and its design above any seen previously, and catapulted seating from being hand-crafted into the age of industry.
Boppard’s land-owner of the time, Fürst Metternich, was so impressed with the high performance of Thonet’s company that he persuaded them to relocate to Vienna to professionalise the international career of bentwood technology from there. But even in the early 20th century the company – which by now was internationally active – was looking for production sites with sufficient supplies of wood and found Frankenberg in Hessen, and it was from here that one part of the family would continue to practise the company’s skills in future. And it was this Hessian branch of the family company that underwent a second immense technology boost in cooperation with the Bauhaus avant-garde in the 1920s. Wood bending was followed by steel tube bending, with which Mart Stam, Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe were experimenting. German furniture design had arrived in the modern age, and again the combination of technology and an appropriate design was a key factor for international success. System design
The Nazi period and the war represented a hiatus in the development of industrial design in Germany – that goes for furniture design as well. The avant-garde emigrated, the official taste of the time was dabbling in the establishment of an “ethnic” design idea, which however differed from Scandinavian modernism for instance, where the interpretation of folk art infiltrated modern industrial design and was primarily characterised by formal gracelessness. It was only after the war, when the newly-established American stores in the destroyed Western zones were showing exhibitions of contemporary living in the USA, that many small businesses opted for a modern design approach as production took off again.
The destruction of the war had created a huge requirement for affordable living space and modern, low-budget furniture. And something that seems all the more remarkable, quasi typical German themes came across in design, even in view of the American consumer society that was its model. It was not an iconographic or fashionable approach that was developed, but rather a systematic one. The interlübke brand was created, for which Hamburg interior architect Rolf Heide designed modern cupboard systems, a classic that is still in production today. Friedrich Wilhelm Möller developed the seating system conseta for cor, a new brand of upholstered furniture, of which the basic style is still manufactured today in endless variations. Dieter Rams created the shelving system 606 for Vitsœ, which is probably still unrivalled today. It is the prototype of system design in modernism per se, which survived all the company crises, even when it went bankrupt. At the same time these internationally successful examples were confronted with innovative ideas, – be it the unbelievably fragile, lightweight furniture by Bauhaus scholar Herbert Hirche or the plastic shell chairs that the architect Georg Leowald developed for Wilkhahn – which at first were denied international interest because the company had scarcely developed an international presence. Healthy number of small businesses
And today? Has anything about the situation changed? Internationally successful German designers such as Konstantin Grcic or Werner Aisslinger work mainly for Italian furniture manufacturers. But as well as that a healthy number of small businesses has become established in this country, who are making their own way, who frequently represent designers and producers in the personal union and for whom the world is their market. But who are those players today, who represents German furniture design internationally?
For instance there is Nils Holger Moormann, who has created a brand of radical simplicity, but has committed himself to the German system intelligence like no other. His shelving system FNP, designed by Axel Kufus, is characterised by ingenious perfection and gives the impression of light aircraft design. Then there is Studio Vertijet from Halle, that developed an upholstered furniture system for cor – Lava, which has interpreted sitting, lying, lounging and working in completely new ways. A form scenario that cocks a snook at the classic upholstery configuration. There is the company e15 from Oberursel, whose boss Philipp Mainzer liberated solid wood as a material from its sheltered existence in conservative surroundings, impressed the international architecture scene, and recently even joined forces with Munich designer Stefan Diez to develop a chair together whose construction – inspired by a method used in model plane building – combines state-of-the-art technology with traditional craftsmanship. There is Frankfurt designer Knut Völzke, who is following the trail of the legendary Ulm Stool with his universal furniture system May, Julie, August – consisting of a tray and two boxes in various sizes. A thing only becomes what it is supposed to be as a result of the user’s ideas. Völzke’s label Leise provides the perfect blueprint for this. Typical German design ideas
It is pleasing that this selection of young German furniture companies will be ongoing, because German furniture design seems to be overcoming its invisibility in international circles. The reason is that all these companies see the necessity of defining their market differently from how they did before. It is remarkable that however independently they play out their themes and niches, the designers feel consciously or unconsciously committed to typically German design ideas in whatever they do. They are in love with technology and quality, system-orientated and always on the look-out for a new typology that might cause a revolution in the entire design world. So we are confident that furniture design from Germany – once a terra incognita – will transform into an accepted entity by international comparison within a few years. |
Andrej Kupetz
is the managing director and specialist director of the German Design Council and writes for design magazines like design report, form etc.
Stephan Ott
works as a freelance author, journalist and lecturer. Since the beginning of 1999, he has been responsible for communication at the German Design Council.
Translation: Jo Beckett
Copyright: Goethe-Institut e. V., Online-Redaktion
September 2009
Any questions about this article? Please write to us!
online-redaktion@goethe.de
is the managing director and specialist director of the German Design Council and writes for design magazines like design report, form etc.
Stephan Ott
works as a freelance author, journalist and lecturer. Since the beginning of 1999, he has been responsible for communication at the German Design Council.
Translation: Jo Beckett
Copyright: Goethe-Institut e. V., Online-Redaktion
September 2009
Any questions about this article? Please write to us!
online-redaktion@goethe.de
