Less and More. The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams

He is perhaps the most influential living industrial designer of modern times and some call him the Godfather of Apple design: Dieter Rams. For design addicts the similarities in the design philosophy of Dieter Rams’ designs for Braun during the second half of the 20th century and Jonathan Ive’s designs for Apple are obvious, but essential parts of Dieter Rams’ design language and philosophy – or ethos – have been adopted by many other designers as well. His 10 principles of good design have led to pieces of industrial design that stand out and became true classics.

Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams is a unique retrospective at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt / Main. It shows more than 500 exhibits, among them the famous Braun SK 4 record player (popularly called “Schneewittchensarg” / Snow White’s Coffin because of the plexiglass hood) that Dieter Rams created in collaboration with Hans Gugelot; the 606 Universal Shelving System for Vitsoe“. An important focus of Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams is the historical as well as the design context of Dieter Rams’ oeuvre, that’s why the exhibition also shows works by Peter Behrens, Russian Constructivism, De Stijl, the Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation), the Ulm School of Design (Hochschule für Gestaltung), Hans Gugelot, Peter Raacke and Richard Sapper.

The above video is an excerpt of an exhibition walkthrough combined with an interview with the Co-curator of the exhibition and Head of Exhibitions of the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, Prof. Dr. Klaus Klemp. In this excerpt, he focuses on the Design language of the Braun product design. Full-length version below.

Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams. Exhibition walkthrough and interview with Prof. Dr. Klaus Klemp. Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, July 29, 2010.

> Right-click (Mac: ctrl-click) this link to download Quicktime video file.

Full-length version (24:41 min.):

Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams is an exhibition project realized on the initiative of the Suntory Museum, Osaka, and the Fuchu Art Museum, Tokyo. In 2006, the Suntory Museum invited Prof. Klaus Klemp, Head of Exhibitions at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, to act as guest curator for a major retrospective on Dieter Rams. Carried out in collaboration with the Suntory Museum’s design curator Keiko Ueki-Polet, the resulting exhibition was first shown in the autumn of 2008 in Osaka, then at Fuchu Art Museum in Tokyo, and then at the London Design Museum. An extensive catalogue in German and English was published in December 2009.

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Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams

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