KAIROS +1 – OBJECT +1

Object:
Bringt etwas zum Anstoßen mit.
Bring something to toast with. 

IPP – Magazine

Das letzte und ungeplante KAIROS Gespräch dieses Jahres findet am 22.2.2021 statt. An diesem Tag sind die meisten Präsentationen geschafft und wieder ein Onlinesemester vorbei. Wir wollen dieses KAIROS Gespräch dazu nutzen um gemeinsam online anzustoßen und in lockerem Rahmen das neue UdK Designmagazin zu präsentieren. Es gibt diesmal nicht nur einen Gast, sondern viele verschiedene, die an der Publikation mitgearbeitet haben, Studierende, wie Gloriana Valverde, Hendrick Lucka, Skarlett Cisneros, Tobias Trübenbacher, Alumni, wie Vlasta Kubusova, Lehrende wie Jussi Ängeslevä, Martin Beck und Maciej Chmara, nicht mehr Lehrende, wie Achim Heine und Gäste und Unterstützer von außerhalb, wie Thomas Geisler, der uns auch über den neuen Design Campus in Dresden etwas erzählen wird.

An diesem Tag gibt es ein Preview des Magazins und wir werden darüber sprechen, worin das Potential einer solchen Publikation insbesondere für die Studierenden liegt und wie man sich an der nächsten Ausgabe beteiligen kann.

IPP – Magazine

The last and unscheduled KAIROS talk of this year will take place on the 22nd of February 2021. On this day, most of the presentations will be finished and another online semester will be over. We want to use this KAIROS talk to toast together online and to present the new UdK design magazine in a relaxed atmosphere. There is not only one guest this time, but many different ones who worked on the publication. Students, like Gloriana Valverde, Hendrick Lucka, Skarlett Cisneros, Tobias Trübenbacher, alumni, like Vlasta Kubusova, lecturers, like Jussi Ängeslevä, Martin Beck and Maciej Chmara, no longer teachers, like Achim Heine and guests and supporters from outside, like Thomas Geisler, who will also tell us something about the new Design Campus in Dresden, will attend.

There will be a preview of the magazine and we will talk about what the potential of such a publication is, especially for students, and how to get involved in the next issue.

Zusammenfassung 

xxxx // Kairos 20

xxxx

xxxx

KAIROS 14 – OBJECT 14

bring: nothing, just yourself

ON Sam Hecht

Sam Hecht was born in London in 1969. His training began at the Central Saint Martins School of Art. His interest in industrial design and architecture led him to apprenticeships including David Chipperfield. Hecht thus began to define the style that characterises his personality as a designer. A profound search for the essential, acute observation of the world we live in and a belief that simplicity can be inspirational. In 1993 he completed his masters at the Royal College of Art, followed by 3 years in California with Ideo, and 3 years in Tokyo. This period involved the collaborations with Naoto Fukasawa, producing some startling product typologies over the course of 6 years.

In 2002, he co—founded Industrial Facility with his partner Kim Colin. He began to work with Manufacturers, and the number of clients increased in just a few years. For Muji Japan he created the “Second Phone” (2004), which led to him being invited to become retained designer for World Muji. For Taylor’s Eye Witness, a Sheffield company, he also became main designer producing notable sequels to Robert Welch’s work, selected for the Museum fűr Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt and awarded the Design Plus and of Gold Prize for 2006. More recently he has been appointed design advisor to Herman Miller. Between 2006 — 10, he acted as senior tutor at the Royal College of Art, London, forming Platform 12 and in 2011 was appointed visiting professor of HFG Karlsruhe in Germany. in 2010 he was awarded the ‘Designs of the Year’ for the Branca chair.

www.industrialfacility.co.uk

Zusammenfassung 

Sam Hecht (Industrial Facility)  // Kairos 14

Sam Hecht had several KAIROS moments in life. He thought that he knew everything before studying his master at RCA. He was a designer with skills. For him, a master degree turned out to be about being individual, finding your own identity to choose your own career. The school provided space to be able to develop yourself as a person. It challenged him intellectually and stretched his knowledge. After his studies, he became an intellectually skilled designer.
And another KAIROS moment in his life was when he was in California, USA. Again, he thought he knew everything. But there were so many people who were better than him, and knew so much more about design. He read a lot and was matured by bright people around him. Then he realized that delivering consumption products for selling won’t satisfy him. He started to question it, can I make it better for other people?

After years of experience in the subject of design, he set up his studio called “industrial facility”. He wanted to have the name with no meaning, friendly, anonymous and neutral atmosphere. There weren’t particular strategies behind it but he could communicated with companies that were interesting. After 20 years later, he still doesn’t have a fixed strategy, but he is ready and prepared for clients.

Unlike artists, designers dependent on industry. A start was a big challenge but he continuously, discussed ideas with companies and then got connected with MUJI. Including MUJI, the studio has a long-term close relationship with the companies that they work with. Which means they have better chance to make things better and better.

Sam figures his practice at his studio like a Jazz band. It’s definitely not an orchestra. Firstly, A Jazz band doesn’t need many musicians. Very good musicians play their part their best, yet the fundamental thread of idea runs through. If someone else has better ideas over details, it is important to be respected, analyzed and contemplated. It needs courage to realize the Jazz type of concept. If he needs drums, he lets it flow. Sam is very humble to enjoy challenges, and trying to appreciate it. He still thinks he knows everything know but it is not easy, and it can be tough to be accepted by the clients the and to get better.

Sam works not only on commission with his studio, but also his self-initiates work including books and his future-facility projects. What interests him in the self-initiated projects is networked products for the future. Selling singular products are not relevant today. Products that are connected with networks are the future and we have to be aware of what they are capable of. Connected on the network means consumers are agreed to provide their data which can be used multiple ways without their consent. Todays Designers must get involved to the ability of what networked products can do.

He is always interested in good values, reliable, repairable, beautiful and relevant things and likes to get involved in it. For example his medical projects, he had to learn a lot as a designer and understand the particular situation around it well, to make it better.
Making things better is not just about better materials. It is about the customers who buy it, quality of thoughts, attachments, engagement and relationship. It is something you feel real pleasure about. Sometimes it is hidden nor not visible and people start only to realize while using it. Discovery that is the wonderful thing.

There are many good designers out there. But not all of them can their foot in the door and get established. Industrial design is a particular subject which is limits and difficult. Education can widen the attention to the subject of design.
Sam ends with the answer a question by Fiona Raby who listens in and shared office with Industrial Facility in the beginning of their careers. His self-initiative projects along with studio works are still ongoing. He is still ‘making’ all the time, everyday and Sam said the most important the sentence, “making never stops”. He ‘makes’ in analog ways to create better a connection with him and then making process gradually starts to form itself. He enjoys it. He enjoys to stand back.

Sanghyeok Lee

KAIROS 20 – OBJECT 20

Object: Licht / Leuchte

Entscheidende und wegweisende Momente gibt es viele im Leben und in der Karriere.
Unser erstes gemeinsames Projekt war ein Wettbewerb für die Gestaltung und Realisierung eines Messestandes. Das Thema hieß „Simple Light“ und es sollten Leuchtenprojekte der Studierenden auf der Tendence 2007 präsentiert werden. Das Projekt war die Feuertaufe für unsere Zusammenarbeit und wurde das Fundament für unser Studio.

ON Besau-Marguerre

Studio Besau-Marguerre ist ein Interdisziplinäres Designstudio im Herzen von Hamburg, das mit einem ganzheitlichen Gestaltungsansatz übergreifend in den Bereichen Produktionsdesign, Visuelle Kommunikation, Styling und Innenarchitektur tätig ist.
2011 von Eva Marguerre und Marcel Besaß gegründet, umfaßt ihr Team heute Innenarchitekten, Textildesign, Grafikdesigner und Produktdesign, mit denen Spannende Messe-Konzepte bis hin zu umfangreicheren Projekten wie die Möblierung der Hamburger Elbphilharmonie umgesetzt werden. Mit einem feinen Gespür für ausgefallene Farben, Experimentelle Formen un ungewöhnliche Materialien und viel Liebe zum Detail, entwirft Studio Besaß-Marguerre individuelle Konzepte, die Dank der vielseitigen Expertise des Teams eine Ganzheitliche Markenberatung und ineinandergreifende Konzeptumsetzung aus einer Hand Ermöglichen. Ausgangspunkt der Gestalterischen Arbeit eines jeden Projektes ist stets das Produkt Selbst, für dessen Entwurf das Interieur von Beginn an mitgedacht sowie dessen übergeordnete Wahrnehmung zur Zielsetzung wird. Die Fertigung von Prototypen in Handarbeit gehört dabei ebenso dazu wie die Nutzung digitaler Designtools

www.besau-marguerre.de
#studiobesaumarguerre

Zusammenfassung 

Besau-Margueare // Kairos 20

KAIROS 19 – OBJECT 19

Als Kairos könnte man wohl den 8. Juli 1999 bezeichnen. Das war der Tag, an dem ich in der Torstrasse 68 in Berlin-Mitte meine erste MOEBEL HORZON Filiale eröffnete.

Günstig war der Ort (Torstrasse, damals noch sehr günstig), der Zeitpunkt (siehe vorherige Klammer), die Jahreszeit (Sommer) und die Uhrzeit (abends). Schnell entstand die grösste Eröffnungsgala, die Berlin je gesehen hatte. Noch wichtiger war aber, dass ich an diesem Tag meinen ersten selbstdesignten Gegenstand präsentierte, das Universalregal „Modern“. Und am allerwichtigsten war, dass an diesem Abend 20 dieser Regale bestellt wurden. Der Anfang meiner erfolgreichen Laufbahn als Designer und Unternehmer!

objekt: ein Bild von dir vor ein regal / an image of you in front of a shelf

ON Rafael Horzon

Rafael Horzon studierte Philosophie, Latein und Atomphysik in Paris, München und Berlin, bevor er 1996 als Fahrer in den Paket-Dienst der Deutschen Post wechselte.

Seit 1997 Gründung zahlreicher Unternehmen, darunter das Möbelhaus Moebel Horzon, Horzon’s Spülen Sparadies und Horzons Wanddekorationsobjekte.

2010 veröffentlichte Horzon seinen autobiografischen Bestseller „Das Weisse Buch“, der in zahlreiche Sprachen übersetzt wurde.

2018 wurde Horzons Gesamtwerk als Designer vom Vitra Design Museum angekauft, er gilt seitdem als „wohl wichtigster lebender Designer“ (Designmagazin DEAR).

Im September 2018 eröffnete Horzon in Berlin das Deutsche Zentrum für Dokumentarfotografie, 2019 den Fachmarkt „ Horzons Dämm & Deko“. Im Oktober 2020 erschien „Das Neue Buch“ von Rafael Horzon im Suhrkamp Verlag.

www.horzon.de

Zusammenfassung 

Rafael Hormon // Kairos 19

Rafeal Horzon was introduced on our KAIROS page as „probably one of the most important living designers“. Very propably, some students felt that they had not seen him among the classic design icons until now. This is already the first mischievous twist of many that we have heard in the course of our conversation with Rafael about his person. Since he only created 4 designs in his career, and 2 were taken over by the vitra design museum, he can, by usual rules, call himself as probably one of the most important living designers.
His way of communicating and working was the first point of discussion in our talk. Axel describes his tireless source of humour as a trick to be able to constantly reinvent something using the leverage of humour to take existing things in the world, turn them upside down and make something new out of them.

Rafael cites his ‘Wanddekorationsobjekte’ (engl.: wall decoration objects) made of coloured plexiglass strips, as also used by Anselm Reile in a work of art. If you call these strip paintings wall decoration objects rather than works of art, they become something completely different. So perhaps it simply depends on how you talk about things.
A similar thing happened with his gallery Berlin Tokyo in 1996, where he tested the system of art and whether it would really be so easy to hang simple objects, such as a Japanese packet of crisps, on the wall and declare it to be art and then have it be perceived as such. He exposed the system of art by undermining it. Axel concludes that this twisting is a typical means of humour and leads to awareness. Axel therefore finds that his approach is not a joke, but political design. Existing values that we deal with are made to tilt and Horzon keeps this tilt in a fragile balance that is very interesting in Axel’s eyes.

With his first product, a shelving system, and his company Möbel Horzon, Rafael is pursuing an age-old principle in Axel’s eyes: urban local production, a system of industrially produced semi-finished products that are brought to the point of sale without middlemen and personal contact to the clients.Doing this, he feeds a certain culture, then invests in a new idea, and a never-ending well of a bread-and-butter principle emerges.
Rafale says it was all completely unplanned, that he still has no idea of the processes that product designers go through, and that he thinks a system like middlemen should be overturned anyway. As designers, we have to think more simply – He needed a shelf himself, bought MDF boards at Obi and screwed them together. He then placed this shelf as the only object in a completely empty shop on Torstraße and had ‚the biggest and most beautiful opening gala Berlin had seen up to then‘.

It was interesting to listen to the self-evidence, almost audacity, with which Horzon detaches himself from existing systems in his projects, simplifies them, often makes fun of them and thus also points out absurdities in the systems with clarity. Many things simply don’t make sense the way they are handled and he does it differently.
For example, with his company Redesign Deutschland, founded in 2001, he has redesigned language and time calculation – a grammar consisting of 10 rules and time calculation in a decimal system (1000 days, 100 hours, 100 minutes, etc.).

If Horzon has to describe a strategy for becoming a successful designer: You shouldn’t have a strategy. You should try to have as much fun as possible and just go for it, try things out and don’t wait for a brief or an assignment. Have ideas, hold on to them and then, and this is the most important point, implement them! For him it was always important to have a place to try things out and see if it works without getting into debt. ‚Very important!‘
On this point he had good news for us: many shops in Berlin are empty due to the Corona situation and are cheaper again. There, something can move and they show a possibility to do interesting things without investing a lot of money. In his eyes, a shop has a completely different effect than a website. Besides, you can’t lose much and you can only take away good conversations, great opening galas and interesting experiences.

This brought us to the topic of design fairs, which Horzon has never been to – he doesn’t see the point. Nevertheless, he has direct ideas about the future of the fairs. If he were us, he would get together with others and simply set up a fair in Berlin himself, create a platform. It couldn’t be that difficult, others have done it too. In his opinion, we have to think in a deglobalised way today. You could really tell how clearly and simply he approaches things and how naturally he would implement them.

The talk with Rafael Horzon brings mixed feelings. With his work, he naturally criticises part of design and art, but he also reminds us as designers not to think in an unnecessarily complicated way and actually to do things.
Horzon sums it up very simply: if you have written a novel and you leave it in the drawer, it doesn’t exist. You have to go out with it. Otherwise, what you have created doesn’t exist either.

With a final word to us, he comes back to the shops: every crisis is also a time of change!

Kim Kuhl

KAIROS 18 – OBJECT 18

object to bring: teapot/coffeepot

ON Mateo Kries

Dr. Mateo Kries (*1974) ist seit 2011 Direktor des Vitra Design Museums. Er studierte Kunstgeschichte und Soziologie an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin und begann seine Museumskarriere 1994/95 mit einem Volontariat im Museum für Berberkultur in Marrakech.
1995 kam er zum Vitra Design Museum, wo er bis 2000 als Kurator tätig war. Dann übernahm er die Leitung der Berliner Niederlassung des Vitra Design Museums und war ab 2006 als Chefkurator des Museums tätig. Während dieser Zeit verantwortete er zahlreiche Ausstellungen und war Mitbegründer des Berliner DESIGNMAI-Festivals.
Mateo Kries ist der Autor verschiedener Bücher und Artikel über Architektur- und Designgrößen wie Le Corbusier, Joe Colombo oder Konstantin Grcic, aber auch über Themen wie Design und Surrealismus oder Entwicklungen im nicht-westlichen Design. Er publiziert Artikel über Design und Architektur u.a. in Die Welt und domus und ist regelmäßig Mitglied in Jurys und Berufungskommissionen.
Im Jahr 2010 erschien sein Buch »Total Design – Die Inflation moderner Gestaltung«, in dem er aktuelle Wahrnehmungen von Design kritisch in den Blick nimmt. Mateo Kries ist Mitherausgeber des »Atlas des Möbeldesigns« (2019), derumfassendsten Publikation, die je zu diesem Thema publiziert wurde.

www.design-museum.de
#mateokries

Zusammenfassung 

Mateo Kries // Kairos 18

KAIROS 17 – OBJECT 17

das objekt: eine Teetasse
the object: a teacup

Ich glaube, dass man die Dinge nicht zwingen kann. Man muss abwarten. Deshalb trinke ich gerne Tee. Zum Teetrinken braucht man eine Teetasse. Man kann Tee auch aus einem Glas oder einer Kaffeetasse trinken, aber ich bevorzuge eine Teetasse. Mein Objekt ist deshalb eine Teetasse. Ich hatte auch das Glück, einmal ein Teeservice (um-)gestalten zu dürfen. Praktischerweise ist also die Teetasse eine, die von mir (mit-)gestaltet ist. In diesem Teeservice kommen zwei sehr verschiedene Designtraditionen zusammen: Die minimalistische Eleganz der klassischen Moderne, hier vertreten durch Trude Petri, und Enzo Mari, den man so schwer einordnen kann, außer, dass er alles radikal anders macht. In seinem Teeservice hat er alles umgedreht und das ist schon sehr lustig. Außerdem hat das Teeservice einen dysfunktionalen Goldrand und ein hysterisches Dekor. Das habe ich zu verantworten.

ON Friedrich von Borries

Ich heiße Friedrich von Borries, habe Architektur studiert und bin jetzt Professor für Designtheorie an der HFBK Hamburg. Ich beschäftige mich mit dem Verhältnis von Gestaltung und Gesellschaft, weil ich immer noch hoffe, dass man eine »bessere Welt« entwerfen kann. Ich lebe in Berlin und manchmal Havelberg. Die meiste Zeit denke ich, manchmal schreibe ich und manchmal rede ich. Sehr viel mehr gibt es, glaube ich, erstmal nicht zu sagen.

—

Friedrich von Borries is Architect and Professor für Designtheorie at Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg and as such he wrote numerous texts on design and design politics.
His project School of no consequences – exercises for a new life is on show till 9. May in Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg. As part of an educational programme he introduced the Scholarship for Doing Nothing.

www.friedrichvonborries.de

Zusammenfassung 

Friedrich von Borries // Kairos 17

A very inspiring talk with Friedrich von Borries, who discusses the concept of design, the role of the designer and the function of design with us.

Friedrich von Borries explains Kairos moments as coincidences in life and moments in which topics, you already deal with, appear condensed– You suddenly see something where everything you are dealing with comes together.
This is also how he arrived at the topic of his promotional work, which he describes as his first Kairos. Having walked around the city, he spotted by Nike branded sports fields in Berlin which lead him to the topic of marketing strategies in urban space and covered design, architecture and urban planning at the same time.
He sees another Kairos in Axel, who offered him, as an architect, a teaching position in design at Udk. Axel was the one explaining him that he was clearly doing design theory. Today, Friedrich works as a design theorist.

The object he asked us to bring is a teacup, which also reflects for him what his work is about.
It is in ‚Abwarten und Teetrinken‘ (engl.: wait and see) that his ideas emerge. For him, this moment of eating and seeing also implies a deep trust that things will come as they should. In his RLF project, the teacup also played an important role and he was once allowed to design the surface of a teacup in a project with KPM. For him, like his work, this object covers a theoretical part, a design part and an artistic part and different disciplinary approaches come together.

Axel made then several references to ‚Abwarten und Tee trinken‘ (engl.: wait and see): Firstly a possible ‘Folgenlosigkeit’ (engl.: non-consequence)– with which he addresses Friedrich von Borries‘ ‘Schule der Folgenlosigkeit’ (engl.: School of no consequences) and the scholarship he awarded for doing nothing– and secondly he addresses ‘das Entwerfen’ (engl.: designing) and the implied speed inherent in ‚werfen‘.
Friedrichs way of responding to this gave us a hint of his way of thinking and analyzing.
For Friedrich, designing is not necessarily to be understood as fast. Linguistically, the ‚Ent‘ in ‚Entwerfen‘ even describes something withdrawing, a movement that does not just go straight ahead and fast, as ‚werfen‘ would describe it. This also brings him to ‚verwerfen‘ (egal.: discarding), which is an exercise that he believes we all need to cultivate and learn, especially at university.
That, in turn, has to do with what he discusses under ‚Folgenlosigkeit‘. Doing nothing, refraining from doing something, and also that it can be nice to refrain from doing things. Why just doing nothing is so difficult for many people, for Friedrich, refers to the fact that it is not part of our culture of thinking. We would mostly think in terms of success making it difficult to think the opposite.

In the ‚Schule der Folgenlosigkeit‘, he often encounters contradictions striving for being with no consequences, but at the same time initiating steps that lead to success and thus not remain with no consequences. That’s why, in his eyes, it’s conceptually coherent that the exhibition in Hamburg on this project remains, due to corona, closed. Even if it never opened, it would be coherent.
The current time for the exhibition also fits: it makes us think about our consequences in a different way: every meeting has consequences at the moment, we are in a kind of marathon of consequences that we have never known before. For Friedrich, in this respect, the project fits in very well with the times.
Friedrich mentioned a quite expressive quote of climate activist Tadzio Müller which also became his personal leitmotif for the project: We have to make very consequential decisions now in order to be able to live a non-consequence life someday. This contradiction is very central and important for our time, he said.

When Ineke asked what decisions these could be in his eyes, Borries replied that he was not a missionary type and did not want to give instructions, not even in his books. He always tries to stimulate, to get discussions going and to provoke reactions. He recognises himself in the role of a provocateur. But he also sees himself in the role of a moderator in projects, which, as the opposite of the provocateur, is usually not visible and therefore not so quickly associated with him.

Friedrich prefers to see his work as a broad concept of design: He can combine different disciplines in a meaningful way. what brings us back to the moderator. He shows us a very central function of design: linking and creating synergies. He also avoids giving himself a disciplinary term like ‚architect‘ or author and prefers to describe himself as ’sub-disciplinary‘ or as a process designer knowing what he is good at: developing concepts, writing texts, linking contacts.
It was very nice to observe how clear Friedrich defines himself and his work without assigning to a specific discipline.

On the subject of Kairos, Friedrich concludes: you can only seize opportunities if you always remain open to the fact that everything could always turn out differently. That is a very important basic attitude, without which such moments,like Kairos moments, cannot reveal themselves.

Kim Kuhl

KAIROS 16 – OBJECT 16

object: a pen

Kairos moments. I’ve had many of them. Small ones, larger ones. The moment you listen less to what you think you should do or what you think other people expect of you the more Kairos comes to visit. I used to be a lousy Design Academy student. I was very young and trained in secondary school to do what I was being told. Not to explore by myself. After I was almost kicked out of the academy I decided to try one more time and now only do what I wanted to do. This is when I found food.

ON Marije Vogelzang

Zusammenfassung 

Marije Vogelsang // Kairos 16

KAIROS 15 – OBJECT 15

object to bring: … create or post a grafic behind you …preferable large & colourful

Theme to discuss: IMPACT
… how can relevance be generated
… by designers?
… what is relevant today in terms of civilization?
… what would be the equivalent of the ‚Whole Earth Catalog‘ in 2021 …?
… can there be a meaningful ‚counterculture‘ …?

ON Werner Aisslinger

Werner Aisslinger graduated from UdK product design and has set up a very successful office for product and interior design in Berlin.

His works cover the spectrum of experimental, artistic approaches, including product design and architecture.
He delights in making use of the latest technologies and has helped introduce new materials and techniques to the world of design. His visionary products and spaces explore civilisation related and futuristic topics. Werner Aisslinger’s ‚loftcube’–project became one of the most discussed modular and transportable housing projects within the last years, his ‚hemp chair‘ from 2012 developed with BASF and Moroso was the worldwide first biocomposite Monobloc chair. His work is exhibited in the permanent collections of international museums such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the French Fonds National d’Art Contemporain in Paris, the Victora & Albert Museum London or the Museum Neue Sammlung, The Design Museum in Munich, and the Vitra Design Museum in Weil, Germany.

In 2013 Werner Aisslinger opened his first solo-show called ‚Home of the Future‘ in Berlin’s Museum ‚Haus am Waldsee‘. In 2014 he was awarded the prestigious AW Designer of the Year Award in Cologne. In 2017 he opened his exhibition ‚House of wonders‘ in the Museum Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. Among studio aisslingers interior architecture projects his hotels for the 25hours Hotel group and shopping malls for the Central Group in Bangkok are known for an innovative storytelling concept. He works for brands like Vitra, Moroso, Cappellini, Dedon, Accor, Magis, Hansgrohe Axor, Kaldewei, Foscarini & Waestberg. Werner Aisslinger lives and works in Berlin with a second studio in Singapore.

www.aisslinger.de

Zusammenfassung 

Werner Aisslinger // Kairos 15

The talk with Werner Aisslinger represented the concept of our casual talk series KAIROS pretty good: Since Axel Kufus and Werner Aisslinger have known each other for over 30 years and Axel, Werner and Ineke come more or less from the same generation of design, the conversation between them was quite personal.

Together they were able to present a different generation of design to us students, compared it to our current world of design and discussed themes like the designer’s role and relevance today, the systems and structures in which we operate and how they have changed over time.

The given introduction about Werner Aisslinger ended and thus our talk started with his quote: ‘Das Leben ist eine Collage.’ (engl.: Life is a collage.)
Werner talks about his impression that we live in a world where patchwork is commonplace- be it patchwork families or even representational worlds, where different spaces and objects come together. We don’t talk about styles so much anymore in our time, neither in art, nor in design or architecture. Styles intermingle, like a patchwork, and new symbioses are created. The designer is now more of a curator or a DJ who has mastered the art of developing a collage from these styles and making sure that everything comes together well.

Coincidentally fitting the theme ‘collage’, his ‚object‘, which we were to bring with us, was a colourful flat background – digital or analogue.

An important moment in his life was certainly meeting Axel, so Werner Aisslinger. Through him he met Andreas Brandolini, and through him Jasper Morrison, and through him James Irvine, and then he got a job in Milan. ‘There are those ‚lucky punches‘ in life that get you ahead’. But performance is always important, without that nothing will happen, of course.

For Ineke, also his work has always been ‚collage‘ – from hardcore industrial design to experimental projects like his hemp chair. She asked if he was also sometimes insecure when people assumed that he did not know where he wanted to go. Werner Aisslinger said he did not care as much how it is seen from the outside, there are always projects with less and more response. He made it clear that as designers, we are never completely free, especially after university. We have to work in a construct and there is always a ping-pong player. He gave us an enlightening insight into his company work and dichotomies in which one moves : 30 people working on 30 interior projects + 15 design projects + by side research- and conceptual projects, that sounds like a lot! Running a commercial office is a challenge for itself, but he likes to also work on experimental non profit projects of which some he thought were insane to do, with so much effort and little of his own profit. But apart of the commercial, it is also about creating things that not only fulfil the order, but also have a future, a message and a concept.

He wondered if we also discuss the economic aspects in uni – the licence-based product designer culture is becoming more and more difficult and reckless in his view.
Coming from the generation of ‘author-designers’ / independent designers, who have mainly created furniture, lighting and interiors in their name, he pointed out that the setting has changed. The job of the independent product creator has become more difficult. Even if he somehow misses the ’nerd hours‘ in the basement in university with hours of model building, he is glad that he is now working with several parties in a network. And there again, a collage is created by you being one of the players in a larger project and by finding a compromise of a way somewhere.
Ineke gave us another collage picture: design is like making a sudoku: there are many numbers that have to be fitted into a collage, and these numbers can be haptics, emotions, functionalities, costs, customers, love, impossible aspects…

Today, with digitalisation moving forward, spaces must for example also function via social media, this is a new part of the briefing. Werner Aisslinger wonders whether we see ourselves more in the digital world or whether there is also a counter culture: the longing for real spaces. He thinks analogue spaces are definitely more important than digital ones, civilisation-wise. He also appeals to clients that right now they have to create a real social experience. We can create spaces that bring people together and make them happy – through spaces, objects, surfaces, materials and haptics. In his eyes, this can touch people more than digital surfaces.
Is there a revival of the suppressed analogue? This is a popular discussion point for him.

To the question of how we as designers can generate relevance, Aisslinger answers: with experimental projects that make a statement!
He encouraged us not to wait until we are hired as a designer but to turn an idea into a business, noting that besides skill and creativity, there is also the willingness to take risks and entrepreneurship to get somewhere. But in his view, however, we live in golden times to start a company having the opportunity to find investors by putting our concept on various platforms to test our idea.

At the last question, whether they would do anything differently if they could turn back time, Werner Aisslinger again addressed the generation difference. He, for his time, would not do anything differently and is very happy with his way of work life. But he emphasises that this wouldn’t work as a template for our generation as so many things have changed. ‘The time of author design is over!’.
Ineke also thinks every generation has to do things differently- now, we have to show action, show responsibility, take risks, know what we want to do in design, and show role models.
And Axel said that ‚we are in a transformation process, […] creating good solutions between prosperity and circularity is an insane task for design!‘. Functionalities, emotionalities and world compatibilities now come together and require so much smarter action, which we must be prepared to take.

Werner left us with the ‘Whole Earth Catalog‘, a wild collection of future scenarios, and the thought, that in every generation there is a tomorrow that we help to shape.
He thinks that the exciting thing about our profession is how we can be part of the development of civilisation and how we can help shaping the future. Because designers produce the tomorrow, the visionary.

Kim Kuhl