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Kitchen Clock, Max Bill, 1953. Museum
No. M.224-2007 - Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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Max Bill: Aspekte seines Werkes
 
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This kitchen clock, which incorporates a mechanical timer, was
designed by Max Bill whilst Director of the Hochschule fur
Gestaltung (HfG Ulm), the experimental design school founded in
1953.
The school was established by Inge Aicher Scholl and Otl Aicher in
memory of Scholl's brother and sister who had been killed in 1943
(they were part of an Anti Nazi resistance group). Scholl and
Aicher's initial vision for the school had been for an institution
of democratic education, devoted to politics and philosophy as well
as culture, which would aid in the moral rebuilding of Germany.
Plans for the school were directed more firmly towards design when
the founders invited the Swiss artist and designer Max Bill to be
director.
Bill was a former Bauhaus student, president of the Swiss Werkbund
and a major figure in the cause of modernist architecture and design
in Europe. The school became the figurehead of Western German
modernism in the post war period, often referred to as a 'new
Bauhaus'. In terms of product design, Bill and his colleagues
pursued an ideal of rationalist modernism, in visual and
philosophical opposition to the streamlined styling of post war
American design. A totalising vision of design promoted the
engagement of the artist with industry, although leading members of
the school disagreed about how this should be achieved. The Ulm's
school's achievements in industrial collaboration with companies
such as Junghans and Braun, however, produced an enduring legacy of
modernist product design which was highly influential around Europe.
This clock is one of the earliest and most notable designs by Bill
to be put into production. Everyday objects (kitchen appliances,
audio visual equipment, tools, shelving etc) were a central focus
for the work of Ulm designers, who shared a tradition of 'moral
purpose through design' and 'good form' with the Swiss and German
Werkbunds. Bill had spearheaded the Werkbund's good form campaign
(which ran through the 1950s) with his influential travelling
exhibition 'Gute Form' in 1949. |
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