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CURRENT EXHIBITION
brilliant grey - herbert hirche's centenaryMay 21 - October 25, 2010
The Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge
exhibits the estate of the Bauhaus disciple and Werkbund adherent
Herbert Hirche. |
The exhibition brilliant grey focuses on
the specific situation of post-war Germany, in which an ethics of things
was proposed as a contribution to material and intellectual
reconstruction. Herbert Hirche’s biography made his works ideally suited
to resume the morally unencumbered traditions of pre-war modernism,
veil the history of the period from 1933 to 1945, and revive the utopian
potential of classic Modernism in a reconstructed Germany.
After
his apprenticeship and journeyman years as a cabinetmaker, Herbert
Hirche began his studies at the Bauhaus in Dessau and Berlin in 1930.
When the Bauhaus was closed in 1933, Hirche’s teacher Ludwig Mies van
der Rohe put him to work in his studio. Hirche worked for Mies, and for
Lilly Reich, until 1938. During the war, Hirche directed building works
for the architect Egon Eiermann. After 1945, he worked on planning the
reconstruction of Berlin under Hans Scharoun, and joined the Berlin
Werkbund group. |
| Many companies associated with the Werkbund produced furniture designed
by Hirche, including Wilkhahn, Walter Knoll, Holzäpfel and Wilde+Spieth.
Herbert Hirche was also one of the pioneers of the internationally
successful designs of Braun appliances. Hirche served many of his
patrons as an architect too, building homes, factories and office
buildings. |
 | | Blue Shell Chair, 1955, company Walter Knoll | Hirche intended his buildings, interiors and furniture, not to dominate people’s lives, but to afford the greatest possible freedom to their users and occupants. The title of the present exhibition, brilliant grey, is hence a metaphor for the objectivity and neutrality of Hirche’s designs, as well as for their discreet elegance.
In 1957, Hirche’s furniture was found in many apartments in Berlin’s
Hansaviertel development as part of the Interbau building exhibition.
His unpretentious works were also shown at the Milan Triennale, the 1958
World’s Fair in Brussels and the 1964 Documenta, exemplifying the new
West German product culture propagated by the Deutsche Werkbund.
These
objects went abroad as the ambassadors of a
young, democratic, better
Germany.
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 | | Bar Trolley, 1956, company Christian Holzäpfel | After 1945, the Werkbund was chiefly concerned with the
reconstruction of cities destroyed by war, the establishment of a
contemporary residential style, and the quality of industrial mass
production, which was now becoming ubiquitous. Herbert Hirche designed
several of the most important exhibitions on these issues, including Wie
wohnen?, Stuttgart, 1949; Gute Industrieform, Mannheim, 1952; and
Schönheit der Technik, Stuttgart, 1953.
From 1948 on, Herbert
Hirche taught at the new College of Applied Arts in the Berlin borough
of Weissensee, and in 1952 he accepted a post as Professor of Interior
Architecture and Furniture
Design at the Stuttgart Academy of Art and
Design.
Hirche was member of the German Design Council, and as an advisor and mentor he became the éminence grise of the young German Industrial Design Association.
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 | | Green Shell Chair, 1957, company Walter Knoll, Re-Edition 2010 Richard Lampert, photograph: Richard Becker, © Richard Lampert | Later, Hirche and his work as an
architect and product designer were all but forgotten. Today his simple,
utilitarian furniture of the 1950s, created as “silent servants” rather
than commercial fetishes, has been reproduced and marketed as
“classics” and “iconic designs.” The deep armchair in the entrance
installation of the exhibition is an example.
The Werkbundarchiv
– Museum der Dinge presents Herbert Hirche with an opportunity to
investigate the meaning and the mandate of history. How dim is the past?
Does it shine into the present?
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