Bayerischer Staatspreis für Nachwuchsdesigner

Appreciation of the winner
by Peter Nickl – Chamber of Crafts for Munich and Upper Bavaria

Human imagination stores traditional forms and takes them for granted. This is especially true of classical forms. We are surprised and our visual perception is disturbed if these forms suddenly vary or are altered. The silver bowl that was awarded the Bavarian State Prize for Young Designers falls into this category. Its rim can be bent and its sides can be pulled up or pushed down either at the same time or individually. The appearance of the bowl changes depending on whether the sides are up and the bowl is curved or the sides are down and the bowl is flat.

The ability to be malleable requires a mechanism that is very simple, yet highly differentiated, and operates on the same principle as a paper streamer. The strength and stability of the bowl’s form guarantee the opportunity to develop skillfully and elaborately integrated profiles.

Because of the surprising aesthetics of the piece, the viewer gradually becomes aware that it follows a basic familiar form. To the eye, it seems as if the form – in itself, closed off and layered in rings – has been deconstructed into a myriad of various pieces. Its construction ensures an attractive interaction of light and shadow with visual decomposition on the surface. The flexibility and liveliness of this surface result in an appearance with matter-of-fact characteristics that almost suggest the piece grew in nature. The novel technological idea behind the concept was highlighted as exemplary by the jury. It is imaginable that the mechanism – which works perfectly – could be transferred to diverse other areas of use.
The sponsors of the Bavarian State Prize for Young Designers intend to highlight technological innovations such as this one and promote their developers. The history of the State Prize shows that other unusual inventions have found their way into serial production. Technical innovation is not unusual for silversmiths who have long since left their traditional sphere of activity behind. Devices and containers made of silver no longer have the status in our everyday lives and in society that they used to have. It is thanks to the inventive and playful spirit of young people that this craft has been transferred to our times in such a convincing manner and that new markets have been opened up to ensure a future that will include surprising novelties. Christofer Born received training at a craft institution in Bavaria from which he graduated with an apprentice’s degree. He currently studies silversmithing at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Nuremberg with Prof. Ulla Meyer

Appreciation of the winner
by Prof. Richard Sapper – Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart

The Bavarian State Prize for Young Designers is awarded in the industrial design and applied crafts categories. Of the three prizes typically awarded, two are reserved for industrial design and one for applied crafts. This year, however, two works in the applied crafts category were honored and only one prize was awarded relating to industrial design. I would like to explain the reasons briefly.

The coveted profession of industrial designer is highly complex. Designers work at the crossroads between the diverse interests relating to a product within a company and the interests of the outside world. This means they have to take many varied viewpoints into consideration – from functionality, manufacturing technology and material consumption to the protection of the environment, easy maintenance and production costs to sustainability, ergonomics, benefits and user-friendliness. On top of all of these practical elements, metaphysical aspects such as beauty, pride, modernization and conservation also require attention. It is no wonder that even young designers are looking for something to hang on to that often can be found inside a wall of rational arguments behind which designers can hide their creations. This is why at times juries are faced with an entire collection of projects filled with good ideas, meticulous work and offering convincing practical solutions but whose formal aspects, however, are not too enticing. In its search for the one sparkling idea, this year’s jury was more convinced by the works submitted in the applied crafts category, which is why the result is a little unusual.

Juliane Trummer’s winning diploma thesis titled Fliegender Kindergarten was not affected by such observations. It is a typical example of what industrial design should be – not an attempt to beautify a product someone already has invented that nobody needs, only to keep it alive, but the invention of products that many or all of us need and that nobody ever has thought to invent or that were not invented because the consumer was not heard in the tumult of the aforementioned crossroads of interests. Nowadays everybody talks about user-friendliness. But what is it? If you fly economy class in a modern plane, do you have the impression that this vehicle was invented with passengers’ comfort and wellbeing in mind? I don’t. What matters is profitability, safety, easy maintenance, etc. Wellbeing certainly is not one of the features taken into consideration. Flying Kindergarten, however, is a product that has been designed for a group of consumers who have no say and who cannot order Airbuses – small children on long-distance flights. Also, the model’s documentation is a perfect example of the use of methodology to achieve an objective:

• determining need based on the increasing number of long-distance and super-long-distance flights for leisure purposes and analyzing the needs of children of diverse ages on planes;
• identifying technology which could be implemented using existing luggage containers, the kitchen and the crew’s rest areas;
• cooperating in a targeted manner with the plane’s manufacturer;
• designing a playroom for children where the function and dimensions can be adjusted to meet demand and developing flight-specific activities for children at a broad range of ages.

All of these requirements have been put into practice by giving up only two seats on the plane and by implementing a myriad of new design ideas. Seldom have we seen a diploma thesis where imagination so closely combines reality and a sense of community.