The world as design

Otl Aicher, Wolfgang Jean Stock

Ernst & Sohn, 1994 - Architecture - 192 pages

Otl Aicher’s writings are explorations of that world. They are a substantive part of his work. In moving through the history of thought and design, building and construction he assures the possibilities of arranging existence in a humane fashion. As ever he is concerned with the question of the conditions needed to produce a civilization culture. These conditions have to be fought for against apparent factual or material constraints and spiritual and intellectual substitute offers. Otl Aicher has a taste for dispute. For this reason this volume contains polemical statements on cultural and political subjects as well as practical reports and historical exposition. Aicher fights with productive obstinacy above all for the renewal of Modernism, which he says has largely exhausted itself in aesthetic visions. He insists that the ordinary working day is still more important than "cultural sunday". Wolfgang Jean Stoc

Contents

• preface by sir norman foster: 9
• introduction: 10
• crisis of modernism: 16

About the author

otl aicher was one of the outstanding exponents of modern design. since the fifties, since his time at the now legendary hochschule für gestaltung in ulm, of which he was a cofounder, he has produced corporate design, to mention just one field of his work, that is among the great achievements of contemporary visual culture — all that need be mentioned here are his designs for braun, lufthansa, second german television, the munich olympics of 1972, and ERCO. a fundamental aspect of aicher’s work is the fact that it is anchored in a "philosophy of making" inspired by thinkers like ockham, kant or wittgenstein, a philosophy dealing with the requirements and aims as well as the objects and claims of design. aicher’s writings on questions of design (covering all branches of visual design, right down to architecture) are available here complete for the first time.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The world as design; Edition Axel Menges
• Authors: Otl Aicher, Wolfgang Jean Stock
• Contributor: Wolfgang Jean Stock
• Edition: reissue, illustrated
• Publisher: Ernst & Sohn, 1994
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Dec 18, 2007
• ISBN: 3433024049, 9783433024041
• Length: 192 pages
• Subjects: Architecture / General; Design; Design / History & Criticism; Design, Industrial; Design/ History/ 20th century; Industrial design; Industrial design/ History/ 20th century; Technology & Engineering / Industrial Design / General