MAX BILL
Tomás Maldonado and Max Bill
Tomás Maldonado and Max Bill: MAX BILL. Buenos Aires: Editorial Nueva Visión, 1955. First edition. Parallel texts in French, English, German and Spanish. Small square quarto. Red cloth stamped in black. Printed dust jacket. 148 pp. One color plate. Profusely illustrated with black and white examples of Bill's paintings, sculpture, architecture, and furniture. Book design and typography by Max Bill. White jacket speckled with random black spots [see scans], rubbing and sunned to edges. Front free endpaper neatly excised. Few examples of red ink underlining to "The mathematical approach in contemporary art [see scan].” Upper corner of textblock gently bumped. Vintage tape repair to edge of pp 91-2 [see scan]. A nearly very good copy in a good or better dust jacket.
8.5 x 8.75 hardcover book with 148 pages showcasing Max Bill's paintings, sculpture, architecture, and furniture. Beautifully designed and printed in Argentina. Max Bill studied goldsmithing at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich from 1924 to 1927, a period in which his designs were influenced by Cubism and Dadaism. He studied for two years at the Bauhaus in Dessau. These years, marked the evolution of his work characterized by functionalism. After finishing his studies at the Bauhaus he moved to Zurich, where he worked as a graphic artist, painter and architect.
Contents
- Tomás Maldonado / "Max Bill"
- Max BIll / "The mathematical approach in contemporary art"
- Max Bill / "A monument"
- Max Bill / "Differentiated living quarters as a city element"
- Max Bill / "Form, function, beauty"
- Bibliography
- List Of Exhibitions
"The difference between the design problems which have to be solved every day and works of painting and sculpture is merely one of degree, not one of principle." — Max Bill
Max Bill [Switzerland, 1908 – 1994] achieved mastery in many areas: avant-garde architecture, the fine arts, product design, typography, journalism, research and teaching and even politics. He was a true 'uomo universale' who represented the concept of 'concrete art' by creating works 'by means of its intrinsic nature and rules', and a lifelong proponent of Die Gute Form [good design].
In 1949 he conceived the "gute form" exhibition, which travelled to Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The exhibition was regarded as an important signal in a Europe which had been destroyed by war and in the reconstruction phase was also looking for new directions in design. An economical use of resources, functionality and long useful life were believed to be what was required — product features which were aimed at durability and contradicted the consumer society and the concept of disposability.
In 1950 Bill, the designer Otl Aicher and Inge Aicher-Scholl decided to found a college of design in Ulm. They regarded the reconstruction period in Germany as an opportunity to revive the ground-breaking philosophy of the interdisciplinary teachings of the Bauhaus in terms of both style and content, but now taking into account new production technology. Bill was appointed architect and rector of the new college. In contrast to the prevalent opinion at other colleges of design he taught that industrial design is closely linked to social and political responsibility and must not be influenced by considerations of profit.
Bill rejected the label "designer," regarding himself as a product designer, entirely in the service of the public. Thus, apparently insignificant objects of everyday life were just as important as furniture design. His output ranged from jewellery designs, the Patria typewriter (1944), a shaving brush (1945), a mirror and hairbrush set (1946), a wash stand for the students' rooms in Ulm (1955), the aluminium handle for a piece of kitchen furniture (1956), crockery for Hutschenreuther (1956) right down to the legendary Junghans kitchen clock (1956/57).
Tomás Maldonado (Argentina, 1922 – 2018) was an Argentine painter, designer and thinker, considered one of the main theorists of design theory of the legendary Ulm Model, a design philosophy developed during his tenure (1954–1967) at the Ulm School of Design (Hochschule für Gestaltung – HfG) in Germany. In his early years he was involved with the Argentine Avant Gardes as one of the founders of the Arte Concreto-Invención painters' movement.
Between 1964 and 1967, in collaboration with his German colleague Gui Bonsiepe he created a system of codes for the design program of the Italian firm Olivetti and the department store La Rinascente. In 1967 he established himself in Milan, continuing to teach in the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature of the University of Bologna, working almost entirely now in philosophy and criticism influenced by semiotics. In one of his last essays, "The Heterodox", he claims that the role of the intellectual is to awaken or reveal the collective conscience.