Description
Book SynopsisOtl Aicher's writings are explorations of the world, a substantive part of his work. In moving through the history of thought and design, building and construction, he assures us of the possibilities of arranging existence in a humane fashion. As ever he is concerned with the question of the conditions needed to produce a civilised culture. These conditions have to be fought for against apparent factual or material constraints and spiritual and intellectual substitutes on offer.
Otl Aicher likes a dispute. For this reason, the volume contains polemical statements on cultural and political subjects as well as practical reports and historical exposition. He fights with productive obstinacy, above all for the renewal of Modernism, which he claims has largely exhausted itself in aesthetic visions; he insists the ordinary working day is still more important than the "cultural Sunday".
Wolfgang Jean Stock
Table of Contents9 preface by sir norman foster
10 introduction
16 crisis of modernism
28 doing without symbols
36 aesthetic existence
40 the third modernism
62 charles eames
66 hans gugelot
77 flying machines by paul mc cready
85 bauhaus and ulm
94 architecture as a reflection of the state
113 the non-usable useful item
124 the signature
132 intelligent building
138 my workspace does not yet exist
143 difficulties for architects and designers
150 appearance
167 graphic designers’ space to be themselves
175 a new typeface
179 the world as design
190 afterword
192 sources
