Office for Industrial Design

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The Office for Industrial Design ( AiF ) was the state authority for planning , managing and monitoring industrial design in the GDR from 1972 to 1990 .

Award Gutes Design GDR 1980

Relatively late - only with the demand that GDR products should be measured against "world standards" - greater attention was paid to industrial design in the GDR. For this purpose, a council for industrial form was created at the Institute for Applied Arts in 1962 and a central institute for design was founded in 1963, both of which were subordinate to the Ministry of Culture . In 1965, both institutions were assigned to the design department of the German Office for Metrology and Goods Testing (later: Office for Standardization, Metrology and Goods Testing ), which had existed in East Berlin since February 1964 . With effect from February 1, 1972, the design department was spun off and converted into the newly formed office for industrial design. The duties of the office were regulated in its statute by a decision of the Council of Ministers of November 10, 1978. Most recently, the AiF had a total of around 250 employees in five departments.

The office had its headquarters in Berlin-Pankow, Breite Straße 11, was directly subordinate to the Council of Ministers and was responsible for the preparation of decisions that it had to take to raise the level of design of the industrial products; Furthermore, it had to carry out quality controls and assessments (rating) of design services on behalf of the state and to develop training and further education programs for designers, designers , engineers, etc. The Office for Industrial Design played a key role in ensuring that design development was included in the export strategies of the combines .

Graduated form designer trained the college for industrial design in Halle and the art college Berlin-Weißensee . Technical school designers (today comparable to the German FH diploma) were trained in the technical schools for applied arts . On April 30, 1990 the Office for Industrial Design was dissolved and a Council for Design was formed, which in turn acted as the successor to the Office for Industrial Design from Berlin .

The office included a central development office with several branch offices. In 1977 it was converted into a company subordinate to the AiF, which from 1977 to 1982 was called VEB Product and Environmental Design and from 1983 VEB Designprojekt Dresden with around 60 designers in studios in Dresden , Berlin, Halle (Saale) , Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz), Magdeburg and Gotha . The education center in the Bauhaus Dessau also belonged to the office .

In 1987, the AiF opened its own design center for public relations with rooms for the industrial design collection , the editorial office of the trade journal form + Zweck and a specialist library. The permanent exhibition Product Design in Dialogue interested over 3000 visitors on just 200 m².

The sample collection of industrial design created by the office under the direction of Hein Köster last consisted of 160,000 objects: It has been accessible in a few parts as the collection of industrial design in the museum in the Kulturbrauerei Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg since 1993 and has belonged to the House of History of the Federal Republic foundation since 2005 Germany .

Director: Martin Kelm , State Secretary at the Council of Ministers of the GDR , responsible since 1962.

Head of Department u. a .:

  • Michael Blank , responsible for the Design Center New Industrial Culture, for public relations, exhibitions and communication
  • Jürgen Peters , Head of Department from 1965 to 1990, responsible for "Living", then "Technical Consumer Goods" and finally for "Design Strategy"

Honourings and prices

The Office for Industrial Design has been awarding the “ Good Design” award for a maximum of 50 GDR products annually since 1978 , and from the late 1980s also for foreign products; the award took place on the occasion of the Leipzig spring and autumn fairs .

publication

  • Published trade journal: form + Zweck (until 1963 only as a yearbook).

See also

Web links