The Designs that Forged an Icon: 100 Years of Braun

Sometimes a brand comes along with an outlook so refreshingly new that it revolutionizes an art. While for some that means bringing extra qualities to the table, for Braun, it meant taking things away. Radical simplicity. Under the motto, “Less but better,” Braun set about altering the face of modern product design with a steadfast set of values that revolved around efficiency.

Hermann Junger (b.1928) Bauhaus influenced jewellery

Hermann Junger was one of the best goldsmiths in Germany. His creative jewellery had a big impact not only in Germany, but also all over Europe and the U.S. He studied at the Staatliche Zeichenakademie, Hanau.Read More →
Christian Dell (1893 – 1974) German metalworker designer

Christian Dell (1893–1974) was a German silversmith. Dell was born in Hesse’s Offenbach am Main. In the 1920s, Dell ran the metal workshop at the Bauhaus University, and his designs are, in line with the Bauhaus style, characterised by modern shapes and functionality. After his successful stint as an industrial designer, Dell returned in the late 1940s to his original profession as a silversmith.Read More →
Erna Zarges-Dürr (1907-2002) – German silversmith

Erna Zarges-Dürr (1907-2002) was a German silversmith. She was professionally active Pforzheim, Leipzig, Berlin. and Stuttgart. Between 1924-27, she trained at Bruckmann und Söhne, Heilbronn, as the first women in the silversmiths’ department. From 1927, she studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule, Pforzheim, under Theodor Wende and others. Read More →
Hermann Zapf (1918 – 2015) German Typographer and Calligrapher

Hermann Zapf (1918 – 2015) was born and educated in Nuremberg. Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse, a calligrapher and typeface designer, was his wife. Palatino, Optima, and Zapfino are some of the typefaces he developed.Read More →
Trude Petri-Rabin (1906 – 1989) German Ceramicist

From 1927 she studied porcelain at Verinigdten Staatsshulen für freie und angewandte Kunst (United State Schools for Free and Applied Arts), Berlin, and Staatliche Porzellan-Manufakture, Berlin (Royal Porcelain Factory, Berlin).Read More →
Franz Rickert (1904-1991) German Silversmith

He worked as a silversmith from 1926 and became one of the most important silversmiths in Munich and an outstanding enameler. 1935-72, he taught at the Staatsschule (later Akademie) fur angewandte Kunst in Munich. In the 1950s and 1960s, he designed numerous religious objects.Read More →
Ferdinand Kramer (1898 – 1985) German Architect and Designer

Kramer’s father was the owner of the most well-known of Frankfurt hat shops. In 1916, immediately after school, Kramer was drawn into military service and remained a soldier through the end of the First World War. The following year he trained at the Bauhaus for a few months before quitting, disillusioned with the technical level of the training, then began a three-year architectural study in Munich with Theodor Fischer.Read More →
Arzberg Porcelain – prestigious German design

Arzberg is regarded as one of the most prestigious porcelain design houses in the world. The definition of good design. Arzberg combines aesthetics, functionality, and durability.Read More →
Hermann Gretsch (1895 – 1950) designer for Arzberg

Hermann Gretsch was a German architect, engineer and product designer. In the 1930s, Gretsch worked for the Porzellanfabrik Arzberg.Read More →
Konstantin Grcic Unveils – CUP Chair For Plank | 🇩🇪 German Design

For travellers, the benefits of plastic shell suitcases have come to be appreciated. They are extremely light and flexible, yet powerful and good looking. Suitcases made of thin vacuum-formed plastic sheets have completely transformed the product category. As a designer of the furniture, Konstantin Grcic was surprised by this ingenuity and the suitability of the modern chair covers for production and performance. Read More →
Herbert Hirche (1910 – 2002) German Industrial Designer

Hirche’s work was also shown at national and international fairs and exhibitions. These include the Milan Triennale in 1957 and Expo 58, the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. IRead More →
Oscar Barnack (1879 – 1936) and the first 35mm camera

The Leica 1, the first functional 35 mm camera, was introduced in Germany in 1925, making photography much more accessible to the general public.Read More →
Albert Reimann (1874 – 1971) German metalworker and educator

Albert and his wife Klara Reimann founded the Schülerwerkstatten für Kleinplastik (School for Small Sculpture) in Berlin in 1902. Reimann was a gifted craftsman who created prototypes to produce bronze, copper, silver, gold, and pottery. Read More →
FROGDESIGN (1969) German international design firm

Frogdesign made a global impact in the 1980s by virtue of its products’ visual expressiveness and ergonomic success, traits that attracted an extensive and prestigious client listRead More →
Wilhelm Wagenfeld (1900 – 1990) German architect and industrial designer

He was an assistant lecturer at the Bauhaus in Weimar from 1922 to 1929, where he primarily designed lighting fixtures. Read More →
Herbert Bayer (1900 – 1985) – Universal Typeface – Bauhaus Master

The universal typeface, 1925, was a geometric alphabet based on bar and circle and was designed by Herbert Bayer (1900) to function efficiently in a technological society. Bayer rejected the “archaic and complicated gothic alphabet” which lingered in the most scientifically advanced society of its time, Germany of the first world war period and the postwar era. Read More →
Hugo Leven (1874 – 1956) German Sculptor and Metalsmith

Leven studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule and then at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. He worked in his father Louis Leven’s studio for a time, had numerous contacts with French artists who had a strong influence on him, and quickly became known. Engelbert Kayser hired him as the first employee in his studio. From 1895 to 1904, Leven designed numerous models for Kayserzinn; his works had a lasting influence on the Art Nouveau pewter foundry. He also worked for the Kreuter company in Hanau and other companies that manufactured metal, silver and earthenware, such as B. Koch & Bergfeld and WMF.Read More →
WMF – Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik (1853)

The outbreak of the Second World War created significant difficulties during the early stages of restoration, leading to the closure of the NKA (Contemporary Products Department), but by the early 1950s, the company was back on track. Many of Wilhelm Wagenfeld’s WMF creations date from these years. Read More →
Michael Boehm (b.1944) German Glassware and Ceramics Designer

Boehm joined Rosenthal in 1966. His limited-edition Reticelli range illustrated his interest in Italian glass by incorporating cotton twist threads in the molten glass-like 17th-century Venetian vessels. Read More →
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886 – 1969) German architect and designer

Between 1905 and 1907, he worked as an apprentice to architect and furniture designer Bruno Paul in Berlin, where he studied wooden furniture design. He created furniture for all of his early homes, including the Werner residence.Read More →