Sintrax
Sintrax is an abbreviation for the Sintrax coffee machine , a household laboratory device made of heat-resistant borosilicate glass that makes the technical process of coffee preparation transparent, which was produced up until the 1960s . The way it works, the Sintrax can be assigned to vacuum generators, a type that had a tradition as early as the 19th century. The real technical innovation was the fireproof glass.
The Sintrax was first built in 1926 by the Jenaer Glaswerke Schott & Gen. presented.
A contemporary coffee machine based on the Sintrax principle
The water starts to boil
is pushed into the upper container by the steam pressure,
When it cools down, the finished coffee is sucked back down.
Ready to serve.
The illustrated model from Bodum is not a Sintrax. It has nothing to do with SCHOTT & GEN., JENA and the only thing in common with the Sintrax is the way it works.
Design history
Although the device itself is a household appliance that is almost forgotten today , numerous well-known designers have produced new Sintrax designs for Jenaer Glas over the decades.
Contrary to what is often mentioned, the first Sintrax was not developed by Gerhard Marcks , but was a factory draft of a developer unknown today. It was presented at the Leipzig trade fair in 1926 , shown on an advertising postcard and the name Sintrax - a word created from the terms sintering and extracting - was registered as a trademark by the Reich Patent Office in the same year .
Gerhard Marcks, who has meanwhile been appointed to Burg Giebichenstein (he was a master craftsman at the Weimar Bauhaus until 1925), then designed a new shape for the Jena glassworks Schott & Gen. in 1926 on behalf of Erich Schott , which went into production at the beginning of 1927. His design was first shown in 1928 in the magazine "Die Form" of the German Werkbund and advertised as "completely reworked".
By Wilhelm Wagenfeld the Sintrax was fitted with a new handle in 1931, the glass hollow bodies (cooking bottle and funnel) of Marcks Draft he was unchanged. Instead of the bow-like (like an inverted U) curved handle, the Sintrax now featured a simple, horizontally running black wooden handle. In addition, he sunk the knob of the lid so that the lid can now be put down the other way around. The Wagenfeld-Sintrax was manufactured in Jena in various sizes (with a capacity from 1/4 liter) until 1939. After the end of the Second World War, it was produced from 1951 with a new lid for the cooking bottle, also in Jena until 1954. The pre- and post-war versions can be distinguished by the red (before) and black (after) rubber between the cooking bottle and funnel.
The long-time director of the Zwieseler Glasfachschule , Prof. Bruno Mauder , designed a new Sintrax for the western Schott works on behalf of Erich Schott in 1948. It was one of his last jobs. His Sintrax was first made in Landshut and later in Mainz with a few modifications until 1963, a similar variant in Jena until 1966.
The 'Sintrax 52' was produced as the penultimate model in the Mainz plant in five sizes (1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 1 and 1 1/2 liters). Contrary to the other Sintrax versions, for which well-known designers can be named, this is a factory draft based on the Mauder-Sintrax. The hollow glass bodies were less balloon-shaped than on the 'Mauder-Sintrax' and the bent plastic handle was also much simpler.
In 1955, a new SINTRAX model, based heavily on the Mauder design, was presented in Jena (see brochure 8921). The handle was a little longer, the cooking bottle had a spout and the filter for the cooking bottle was different. This Sintrax was called “Jena Therm”, from 1959 also as “Saale-Glas GmbH” with a new trademark for export to certain countries.
In far fewer numbers and only between 1964 and 1968, Schott produced the last model of the Sintrax in Mainz. It was only offered in one size. Heinrichöffelhardt designed it so that the symmetrical layout of the glass vessels resembled an hourglass in its basic shape. With its own handle parts and equally dimensioned openings in both vessels (so that a glass lid could be used when making coffee and then serving it), this machine surpassed its predecessors in terms of handling. The'öffelhardt-Sintrax 'was also superior to its predecessors in terms of preparation time. These criteria were decisive, because in the meantime the competition with electric coffee machines was pushing onto the market and this was ultimately the reason for the short production time of the last Sintrax (ironically, it should be noted that the glass vessels of the coffee machines were not infrequently manufactured by Schott AG ).
Due to the closed overall shape, the accessories and the interplay of the rounded glasses and the sharp shapes of the black handles, we can call it the most consistent; at the same time it is the least known. The manufacturer no longer issued a successor model.
literature
- Oliver Nagler: Coffee for the glass-covered table - laboratory-grade special glass in the household using the example of the "Sintrax 52" coffee machine . In: Kulturgut - from the research of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Hf. 18 (3/2008), pp. 16-20. [1]