product

Tin Man: Christopher Dresser’s Work in Humble Metals

Originally posted March 5, 2009 on interiordesign.net

image

Christopher Dresser (1834-1904) cut a wide swath across 19th-century culture and commerce. In a career spanning 50 years, he wrote and lectured about botany and ornament, and produced an array of designs in areas as diverse as furniture, dinnerware, glass, ceramics, silver, textiles, and wallpaper. Hugely successful and influential in his day, he was nonetheless marginalized after his death by a design press that all but lionized William Morris.

image

Reassessment was slow to take place, and focused on the proto-modernist aspects of his work, specifically on the geometric and austere silver designs of the 1870’s and 1880’s. Nicholas Pevsner devoted all of one paragraph to Dresser in his 1936 Pioneers of the Modern Movement, citing a pair of silver cruets for their startling simplicity of form. Herwin Schaefer similarly mentioned Dresser in passing in Nineteeth Century Modern (1970), again focusing solely on the prescient modernity of the silver designs for Hukin & Heath and Dixon & Sons. Only in the past twenty years has a fuller and more balanced picture of Dresser emerged. Notable here are the monographs by Widar Halen (1990) and Stuart Durant (1993), and the 2004 exhibition catalog Shock of the Old: Christopher Dresser’s Design RevolutionThese accounts have in common an attempt to illustrate the range of Dresser’s work, and to relocate Dresser as a Victorian thinker and creator, as much a man of his day as ahead of it.

image

Still, in all these writings the astonishing silver designs take center stage. Executed after his epochal trip to Japan in 1877, the silver and silver-plated teapots, decanters, tureens, and toast racks look to our eyes more like Bauhaus or post-modern objects than like Victorian things. They represent a body of work unrivaled in the 19th century, and still relevant in the 21st century—original examples can fetch in excess of $100,000, and Alessi recently re-issued a series of Dresser’s silver designs in stainless steel. Lost amidst the fanfare for the silver design is Dresser’s work in tin, copper, and brass. 

image

Generally, the designs in these humble metals are treated as poor cousins to the silver designs, and they garner less print and fewer illustrations in the literature. To some extent, this is because less is known about this work, including which designs Dresser himself was responsible for. Still, there is no doubt that in the 1870’s and 80’s Dresser’s office did work in copper and brass for Benham & Froud, and in tin, copper, and brass for Perry & Sons of Wolverhampton. The latter company in particular has attracted my attention, and I have over the years examined 20-25 different Perry & Sons designs that I would attribute to Dresser, and I would guess there are at least as many more still out there. I have collected about a dozen examples, six of which are illustrated here.

image

What unites and identifies Dresser’s work for Perry & Sons is what separates it from most Victorian design—the interplay of geometric forms, the origami-like foldings, the bold use of color, and the lack of superficial ornament. The low cost of the materials, combined with the relative ease of working them, allowed a tangible freedom of expression not present in the silver work. The tin (and brass) candle holders and watering cans convey a sense of delight and exuberance; they are inexpensive but confident works that make a bold and progressive visual statement. I would suggest that the Dresser design team’s tin pieces for Perry were to the late 19th century what the Nelson design team’s clocks for Howard Miller were to the 1950’s—the output of a laboratory for creative experiment and design-play, and a proving ground for new shapes and forms. Yet, before we rip Dresser out of his Victorian milieu, we should point out, as one wag did, that while Dresser was designing forward-looking tin candle holders, Edison was inventing light bulbs.

image

Brains and Braun

Originally posted February 5, 2009

Good design for us means as little design as possible. Not for reasons of economy or convenience. It is surely one of the most difficult tasks to arrive at a really convincing, harmonious form by employing simple means…More complicated, unnecessary forms are nothing more than designers’ escapades, which have the function of self-expression instead of expressing product functions…The economy of Braun design is a rejection of this type of design; it leaves away everything superfluous to emphasize that which is more important. 

Dieter Rams

image

Few design companies have enjoyed the amount of critical and commercial success that Braun has for the past half century. Founded in 1921 by the engineer Max Braun, the company vaulted to prominence when his sons Artur and Erwin took the helm in 1951. Artur Braun, in particular, recognized the market potential for progressive design thinking in the burgeoning post-war field of consumer electronics. Part entrepreneur, part design auter, Artur turned to the fledgling Ulm School and its rationalist design principles for input. He hired Dieter Rams in 1954, and surrounded him with other Ulm alumni, including Hans Gugelot, Fritz Eichler, Gerd Muller, and Weinhold Reiss. The collaboration proved fruitful, and the Braun product line expanded from radios and hi-fi equipment to electric shavers, fans, hair-dryers, blenders, and televisions. By the end of the 1950’s, Braun had become the avatar of a fresh and clean-looking visual aesthetic that helped transform the design landscape.

image

The driving force behind Braun design was Dieter Rams. Rams was officially appointed design director in 1962, and he remained in this position until he retired in 1995. Rams’ design philosophy was, literally, simple, and was described by his colleague Rudolf Schonwandt as “order rather than confusion, quiet rather than loud, unobtrusive rather than exciting, sparse rather than profuse, and well-balanced rather than exalted.” In his own writing and speeches, Rams indicated strong opposition to extreme visual stimuli and stylistic obsolescence. He abhorred the chaos he perceived in the visual environment, a chaos stemming from too many designs that called attention to themselves, and too much turnover for mere novelty. Rams attempted to counter this with designs that “integrate better and more pleasantly into people’s surroundings.” Long usage would make these products even more familiar and comfortable.

image

Rams did not turn a blind eye to appearance, but he sought a timeless                           rather than a modish beauty, and clearly favored a minimalist visual aesthetic. His mantra of “less, but better” was not a devaluation of the role of design, but rather a reassessment. As the quote at the top suggests, the design process at Braun was intensive and meticulous, concerned with proportions to the last millimeter, and with details to the last screw fastener.

Two products, both illustrated here, exemplify the sea-change in design that took place in the mid-century: the SK-2 radio of 1955 and the SK-4 phono/radio of 1956, also known as “Snow-white’s coffin.” The SK-2, designed by Artur Braun and Fritz Eichler, is to my eye one of the most beautiful and abiding examples of product design from the 20th century. Transistor technology permitted a reduction in scale and the metal case permitted a reduction in material to a maximum thinness. The simple but brilliant decision to extend the speaker perforations across the entire face turned a functional element into a unifying graphic element, one that moreover expresses the underlying aural nature of the product.

image

Function is self-explanatory, organized logically and legibly into on/off, volume, and station. The SK-4, designed by Dieter Rams and Hans Gugelot, similarly exposes and conveys its function, showing operating elements without disguise or ornamentation. The plastic cover literally conveyed transparency, and quickly became industry-standard.

image

The run at Braun under Rams’ stewardship was remarkable for its continuity and consistency. If evidence of the excellence of Braun’s product designs is needed, it can be gleaned from length of the production runs of Braun products, how long these products hold up in usage, the number of Braun designs in the permanent design collections of museums such as MoMA, and the demand for vintage Braun designs among design collectors today.

Images from top: Electric shavers, SM-3. Gerd Muller, 1960. Photo from Flickr; Photonium. Record player PS 45. Dieter Rams, 1962. Photo from Flickr; Photonium. Pocket radio T-41.  Dieter Rams, 1959. Photo from Flickr; Marcos Dupico. SK-2 radio. Artur Braun and Fritz Eichler, 1955. Photo by LPW 2. SK-4 phono-super. Dieter Rams and Hans Gugelot, 1956. Photo from Flickr.