DIETER RAMS, THE DESIGNER WHO SET THE BAR AS HIGH AS IT GOES, AT THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART
THE WEEKLY PIC: I make a point of never writing about objects I haven’t seen, but I’m making an exception for the important Dieter Rams show that opened recently at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. After all, my family or our friends once owned a good number of the objects that Rams designed for Braun in the 1950s and ’60s – including this SK4 sound system, which is in the PMA show. Another Braun classic by Rams now on view in Philly, the KM3 modular mixer, happens also to be sitting happily in my kitchen cupboard, after doing more than four decades’ worth of mixing (and blending, and kneading, and meat-grinding) for my mother and then me.
Two things astonish me about Rams’s designs.
First, that they really do seem to be almost as “timeless” as the critical cliché demands of masterpieces. Amazingly, they still count as simply “good design” rather than “period style.”
Second, that so few of today’s designers have learned from them. I have a much more recent Braun toothbrush in my bathroom, and it’s full of all the unnecessary, ornamental “extras” that make it a cruddy example of modern design. I won’t even mention the Internet router we got from our cable company.
Most Apple products are better – basically because they are Rams rip-offs. But they shouldn’t count as 21st-century design at its best. They ought to be the bar set at its lowest, with lots of room still to do better, or different. Or was Rams so good that there’s simply no moving on from him? (Image copyright Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt am Main, photo Sebastian Struch)
butteryplanet