MANILA, Philippines - Who is the influential 20th century German designer who is considered the founder of modern objective industrial architecture and modern industrial design?
He was born in Hamburg in 1868 and studied at the Hamburg School for Applied Arts from 1886 to 1889 before attending the Kunstschule in Harlsruhe and the Dusseldorf Art Academy.
From 1890, he worked as a painter and graphic artist in Munich, where he joined the Jugendstil movement, and in 1893 he was a founding member of the Munich sessions.
He produced woodcuts, color illustrations, designs for book bindings and crafts objects entirely shaped by the Jugendstil formal language. In 1897, he joined forces with other artists in Munich to produce handmade utilitarian objects. In 1898 he collaborated on designing the Berlin journal Pan and produced his first furniture designs.
In 1899 he was appointed by Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt to the his artists colony in Darmstadt where he built his own house and fully conceived everything inside the house (furniture, towels, and pottery). This caused a stir, and became the turning point in his life, when he left the artistic circles of Munich towards a more sober and austere style of design.
In 1906 he received he first commission from AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitats-Gesellschaft) to design advertising material. Hired as an artistic consultant to work on a wide range of projects, he designed the AEF Turbinenhall in Berlin, a concrete, steel and glass factory building with an outspoken agenda.
In addition to his work in architecture, he also designed household electrical appliances, standardizing the forms of their components and thus making them interchangeable, which rationalized production.
He designed AEG’s complete corporate identity — logotype, product design, publicity — and for that he is considered the first industrial designer in history. This collaboration with AEG lasted until 1914.
In October 1907, he joined several German artists to found the Deutscher Werkbund, which was inspired by the British Arts and Crafts movement. Its aim was to promote craft skills while leading into industrial production, where standardization and an objective formal language were to achieve the same high quality standard as handmade goods.
In that same year, he founded a large architectural and design practice in Berlin where Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier also worked.
This joint studio was very productive and numerous architectural commissions were realized, including the German Embassy in Saint Petersburg, and the IG Farben Hoschst headquarters in Frankfurt, which showed the influence of expressionism.
In 1926, he designed New Wyas, a private dwelling in Northhamption, which is regarded as an early example of International Modern Style. He also designed China, glass objects, and patterned linoleum flooring for various companies.
One of his last commissions in 1938 was to plan new AEG headquarters in Berlin. He also continued to teach as the head of the architecture department of the Vienna Akademie der Bildenden Kunste from 1922 to 1936.
He died in Berlin in 1940.
Last week’s question: Who is the Indian-American chef who was named by Mario Batali as one on the world’s emerging chef talents, and whose La Esquina Restaurant is considered one of New York City’s can’t- miss dining destinations?
Answer: Akhar Nawab
Winner: Erwin Labios of Bacoor, Cavite
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