The 1961 is one of those "crossroads" years of the History of Twentieth Century. That year's events will leave a deep mark - for better or for worse - in Europe. The international context has deeply changed form the post-war years. The Nations that allied to defeat the Nazi Germany are by now opposed militarily and ideologically. From the beginning of the year the Cold War influences the whole World. The threat of a new Global War appears at this point inevitable, and the assumptions are all there. In this gloomy climate, a series of crucial events for mankind comes in succession.
In Germany, in particular, 1961 is recalled as "The year of the wall". In few days the Authorities of the German Democratic Republic ordered the construction of a double layered wall and an armed surveillance system to divide East Berlin form the western sectors. Berlin Wall becomes the symbol of a contrast between East and West that gradually involves the whole World, shortly afterwords bringing it to the brink of a nuclear catastrophe with the Cuban crisis two years later.
The contrasting two superpowers involves all sectors of the economic and political life. Scientific research paves the way to the conquest of Space, opening another contest front between USA and USSR to reach the Space. On April 12th, 1961 Yuri Gagarin with the Vostok 1 is the first human being to travel into Space and orbit around the Earth. the United States of America have to acknowledge the huge leap ahead of the technological development of Soviet Union.
It's the intellectuals turn to build bridges between the counter posed parts. 1961 is sure enough an extraordinary year also for Culture: Ivo Andric is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature; the debate between Positivism and Dialectical materialism divides the Frankfurt School. Karl Popper and Theodor Adorno discuss on the Scientific Research Methodology and give birth to the "Positivismusstreit", namely the clash between Positivism and Dialectical materialism that will influence the future Epistemological debate. The philosophical debate is as such originated by the different ideological visions of Marxism and Positivism. Hemingway commits suicide and Primo Levi writes "La tregua/The Truce", an account of a return to the world of the Living after the hell of Lagers.
The 1961 is moreover the Economic Boom year and the re-construction of the Europe that had been destroyed during the Second World War -that went on during the '50s - forms the paving ground of an unprecedented economic growth period. The welfare society arises, and Germany is in the front line.
German culture rediscovers Weimar. and the representatives of the artistic and theatrical avantgarde, such as Brecht. Walter Gropius, founder in 1919 of the revolutionary tendency of Bauhaus Architecture, establishes in Darmstad the Bauhaus Archive. The Bauhaus, created in 1919, and permanently snapped off with the coming to power of Hitler, is rediscovered in the early '60s by the new generation grown in the harsh postwar period. The rediscovering of the essential lines of the concept of the great German architect is, for the architects of the '60s an Epiphany. The hose and the furniture become the final product of a mental, planning and practical process that combines together technique, ergonomics, simplicity in an totally innovative stylistic merger.
New building techniques concepts enter into the big firms trough by hiring designers, new profession that starts influencing the production lines. With thins new approach the product-objects that are sold are to be seen in a “total” product vision, that is a synthesis of technique and concept.The modern idea of Design as we currently mean it is born.
Braun is one of the first Firms that decides to invest in Design. The best designer was Dieter Rams, who was on apprentice with Otto Apel (Apel was for ten years the assistant of Albert Speer, Hitler's architect, and following that became the Ministry for Armaments and War Production of the Reich. After the war he was hired by the Americans to modernize the construction industry techniques in the USA). Rams started a stylistic research work that brought him to develop the concept of “ergonomic essentiality”, summarized in his aphorism "Weniger, aber besser", that is “Less, but better” or in a wider sense “Less, as long as better”.The influences of the Bauhaus are clear in his works, particularly Peter Keler works, from which he took the concepts of “spatiality” and “linearity” of works as "Wiege (Cradle)", 1922 translating the into simple and elegant lines.
Carlo Giacchin
freiburg w3 - en
