Diseño Industrial, Una Estrategia Para La Unión De La Tecnología Y El Arte

Abstract

Early and repeated claims for the innovative role of Peter Behrens in the field of industrial design may serve as an instructive point of departure from which to examine traditional German concepts of the relationship between artistic form and technique. Nikolaus Pevsner most successfully propagandized these claims for Peter Behrens (Figs. 1-3): The importance of Germany in the early years of the twentieth century lies altogether in the shift from craft to industrial design and concurrently in the discovery by architects (and engineers) of the aesthetic possibilities of industrial architecture... The most important architect was Peter Behrens, the most important organization the Deutscher Werkbund founded in 1907 and dedicated to the cause of good functional form in the crafts and soon in industry too. Peter Behrens was made consultant to the AEG, the Berlin manufacturers of electrical products, both for these products and for their buildings -a completely new and highly influential job. His tea kettles, his street lamps, his notepaper and invoices, his shop interiors and his large factories have all the same functional directness. Art Nouveau which had been Behrens's own point of departure about 1900 was left leagues behind. The style and the spiritual attitude of the twentieth century had indeed been achieved.