Burkhardt Leitner

Burkhardt Leitner, 2017

Burkhardt Leitner (born February 19, 1943 in Strelno ) is a German designer of trade fair and exhibition systems. He was the owner of the Burkhardt Leitner constructiv company , has been developing modular building systems since 1966 and has been designing the limited annual edition "non art" since 1971 .

Live and act

Leitner was born on the run. The family came from Königsberg and fled westwards during the chaos of war. The youngest of four siblings was born on the run in Strelno in the Wartheland . The family first settled near Güstrow , where the father ran the Steinhagen agricultural estate. Leitner attended elementary school there. In 1955 the family fled to West Germany.

In Esslingen am Neckar he graduated from the Silcherschule. Then Leitner started an apprenticeship as a window dresser ( display designer ) at the men's outfitter Knagge & Peitz in Stuttgart.

On March 1st, 1963, Burkhardt Leitner registered his first company in Stuttgart: Burkhardt Leitner Werbegestaltung. In 1966 he developed the first node-plate system "Leitner 1". In 1967 the Leitner Exhibition Systems GmbH was founded . This was followed by the development of several modular exhibition systems. In 1980 the "Leitner 1", "Leitner 4", "Leitner 14" and "non art" systems were added to the Museum der Neue Sammlung , the world's first design museum . In 1989, he left the company he founded, Leitner Exhibition Systems GmbH . Two years later he founded the company Burkhardt Leitner constructiv (1993–2015).

Since 2016, the company has been running under the new name burkhardt leitner modular spaces with new owners.

"Leitner 50" system; in the background Burkhardt Leitner
(Photo: Dietmar Henneka)

In 2015 Burkhardt Leitner withdrew into private life.

Exhibition systems from Burkhardt Leitner

Between 1966 and 1989 Burkhardt Leitner u. a. the exhibition systems: "Leitner 1", "Leitner 4", "Leitner 6", "Leitner 10", "Leitner 14" (developed for Festo ), "Leitner 15", "Leitner 30" (developed for AEG ) and "Leitner 50 ".

The following systems followed between 1993 and 2013: "primus", "pila", "max", "sixo", "junior", "pila petit", "clic", "pon", "pila IV" and "otto" ( Office system).

Exhibitions

Exhibition use of Leitner systems:

• “Antifascist Resistance 1933–1945” - The exhibition opened in 1971 in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt . It was the first nationwide show on this subject and was shown by the German Resistance Study Group 1933–1945 eV . It was designed by the graphic artist Michael Dohmen.
• "Development of the exhibition system for the Bauhaus Archive Berlin"
• "Design: Thinking ahead for people" - An exhibition of the Federal Republic of Germany , set up by the German Design Council in cooperation with the Office for Industrial Design of the German Democratic Republic , in the International Trade Center in Berlin from December 4 to 20, 1984 and in Spring 1985 in Leipzig. Darmstadt.
• "Experiment Bauhaus Dessau" - The exhibition was shown from July 30th to September 1988. The Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin (West) presented its collection in the Bauhaus Dessau with the exhibition system “Leitner 1”, with which it had already equipped its permanent exhibition on around a thousand square meters.
• "Design - USA" - On September 5, 1989, the American ambassador Jack Matlock opened the exhibition "Design - USA" in Moscow . The nineteen American exhibitions in the USSR , organized by the United States Information Agency (USIA) since 1959, were at the heart of the agreement between the two world powers on cultural exchange. Products from the United States were on display - from technology, agriculture, medicine to graphic design. The "Design - USA" exhibition was the last of its kind. Leitner USA, Inc. Exhibit Systems in Chicago was commissioned to display an area of ​​four thousand square meters. US design from various areas was shown. The traveling exhibition began in Moscow and then went to nine other cities: Donetsk , Chișinău , Dushanbe , Almaty , Novosibirsk , Volgograd , Baku , Vladivostok and Khabarovsk .
• "Less and More. The design ethos of Dieter Rams . ”- The traveling exhibition (design: Keiko Ueki-Polet from the Santory Museum, Osaka; curator: Klaus Klemp ) of the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Frankfurt was shown in Frankfurt as well as in the Suntory Museum in Osaka , in the Fuchu Art Museum in Tokyo , the Daelim Contemporary Art Museum in Seoul and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in San Francisco . The "constructiv clic" exhibition system was used here.

Personally dedicated exhibitions:

• “Thank you burkhardt, Burkhardt Leitner's 50 years in design” was the title of the personal and extensive homage from Akin Nalça, managing director of burkhardt leitner modular spaces . With this exhibition as part of the “Insights” series, the Design Center Baden-Württemberg honored the designer's life's work.

Commitment and projects

"Exhibition in the Cabinet" (1998–2002)

"Exhibition in the Cabinet" was a non-profit gallery in Stuttgart's Bohnenviertel . The rather private character of a "cabinet" should underline the concern to make art public in a personal atmosphere. The cabinet saw itself as a forum for people interested in art and the specialist public, artists and gallery owners, art critics and cultural institutions to meet. Each exhibition was limited to a few square meters and three weekends.

As a purely non-profit gallery that did not pursue any commercial interests, Burkhardt Leitner and his wife mainly supported young artists or artists with little experience in the art market in order to facilitate their entry into the cultural scene and to enable further contacts. But artists who had been forgotten or surprising works by well-known artists that were still unknown to the public were exhibited.

"Franking - Temporary Art" (1984–2013)

Instead of using the anonymous, bureaucratic postage stamps , the company literally puts a very personal stamp on its business correspondence. The finiteness of the period of use, which is limited to a quarter of a year, like the volatility of the envelope, in and of itself a disposable item in corporate communication , as a transport medium, become the condition and essence of an art that is temporarily understood. In this self-image, it meets with the temporary architecture of Burkhardt Leitner and thus becomes a natural part of the corporate culture.

"Non art" (1971-2017)

“Non art” was conceived as a new medium to convey the corporate identity of Burkhardt Leitner's company. As such, “non art” was included in the New Collection of State Museums for Applied Art in Munich in 1982 and was awarded the German Prize for Communication Design in 1999 for the highest design quality. “Non art” wanted to be a new kind of communication tool to make the corporate philosophy tangible: the desire for pure aesthetics in trade fair and exhibition design and to make the care of materials tangible. The "non art" objects are made up of modules. Leitner uses the recipient's play instinct as a design principle. He is responsible for the final shape of his individuality. It is basically the compact idea of ​​his exhibition systems - the modular construction principle with its infinite variations. “Non art” (1971–2000) was published as a small book by avedition.

Awards

Between 1963 and 2014, the “Leitner 47” exhibition systems developed by Burkhardt Leitner and his team won national and international design awards, including

• four times design award of the Federal Republic of Germany , most recently in 2012,
• eight times IF design award ,
• five times Red Dot Design Award and
• twice Best of Show Award from EuroShop Exhibitor Magazine.

Memberships

• aed Stuttgart eV; there company member and advisory board until 2006
• German Werkbund until 2001
• FAMAB Association of Direct Business Communication eV
• German Design Council ; there member of the executive committee 1998–2014
• active in the support group of the Merz Academy
• Jury of the Der Mia Seeger Prize ; jury member there until 2005

literature

• Burkhardt Leitner. In: Hans Wichmann : Industrial Design, unique items, series products. The New Collection, a new type of museum of the 20th century. New collection, State Museum for Applied Art, Prestel Verlag , Munich 1985, p. 504. ISBN 978-3-7913-0684-1
• Walter Hönscheidt: about Burkhardt Leitner. In: form - Zeitschrift für Gestaltung , No. 149, Verlag form, Frankfurt am Main 1995.
• Company portrait: Burkhardt Leitner Constructive. In: Arch + , No. 146 “The Debate”, April 1999, pp. 103 ff.
• Burkhardt Leitner. In: Marion Godau : Design Directory Germany. Pavilion, 2000, p. 235.
• Ulrich Fleischmann (Ed.): Burkhardt Leitner - non art, 1971–2000. Av edition , Ludwigsburg 2000. ISBN 978-3-929638-39-4
• Ulrich Fleischmann: Constructiv CLIC from Burkhardt Leitner constructiv . Verlag form, Frankfurt am Main 2001. ISBN 978-3-7643-6788-6
• Ulrich Fleischmann (Ed.): Burkhardt Leitner - System Designer . Festschrift for the 70th birthday, 50 years of independence and 20 years of Burkhardt Leitner constructiv. Av edition, Ludwigsburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-89986-182-2
• Burkhardt Leitner Constructiv GmbH (Ed.): Temporary architecture: Burkhardt Leitner - global network. Av edition, Ludwigsburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-89986-147-1

Web links

Commons : Burkhardt Leitner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Burkhardt Leitner in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Burkhardt Leitner in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Burkhardt Leitner modular spaces , website of the company
• Oliver Ruf: Stamped , Taz , July 15, 2002
• 7 questions to Burkhardt Leitner , Newsletter No. 26, Deutscher Werkbund

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Burkhardt Leitner. In: Andrej Kupetz (Ed.): Günter Kupetz - Industrial Design . Walter de Gruyter 2006, p. 145. ISBN 978-3-7643-7814-1 ( limited preview in Google book search)
2. ↑ burkhardt leitner modular spaces GmbH: company history. In: burkhardt leitner modular spaces GmbH. Retrieved November 22, 2017 . 
3. ↑ Fleischmann, Ulrich: constructiv CLIC from Burkhardt Leitner constructiv . Birkhäuser Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-7643-6788-1 .
4. ↑ Dohmen, Wolfgang (ed.): Exhibition Antifascist Resistance 1933–1945 . Study group for research and communication of the history of the German resistance 1933–1945, Frankfurt, M. 1973 ( d-nb.info ).
5. ↑ German Design Council: Design: Thinking ahead for people: e. Exhibition from d. Federal Republic of Germany ; Berlin, Internat. Commercial Center December 4-20, 1984; Leipzig, spring 1985 / set up by the German Design Council, Darmstadt in cooperation with d. Office for Industrial Design d. German Democrat. Republic. Ed .: German Design Council. Planning, editing and Design: Eckhard Neumann with Ronald Cornelius.
6. ↑ Dieter Rahms: Less and more: the design ethos of Dieter Rams [Exhibition "Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams" initiated and developed by the Suntory Museum, Osaka and Fuchu Art Museum, Tokyo, 2008/2009, November 15, 2008 -25 January 2009; The present book accompanies the exhibition of the same name in the Design Museum, London, from November 18, 2009 to March 7, 2010 and in the Museum of Applied Arts, Frankfurt am Main, from May 22 to September 5, 2010] / [catalog ed .: Keiko Ueki-Polet; Klaus Klemp. Transl .: Jeremy Gaines ...] Ed .: Ueki-Polet, Keiko. 2009, ISBN 978-3-89955-277-5 .
7. ^ Design Center Baden-Württemberg: Announcement and text on the exhibition. In: Design Center Baden-Württemberg. Design Center Baden-Württemberg, November 22, 2017, accessed on November 22, 2017 . 
8. ↑ Uwe Lohrer (Ed.) : Temporary art: indicia 1993 - 2001 . 2002, ISBN 3-935293-11-9 .
9. ↑ Oliver Ruf: Abgestempelt , Taz , July 15, 2002
10. ↑ Burkhardt Leitner: non art 1971-2000 . avedition, 2000, ISBN 978-3-929638-39-4 .
11. ↑ Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany 2012
12. ↑ if world design guide. Retrieved November 12, 2017 . 
13. ↑ Best of Show (Medium Booth). Retrieved November 12, 2017 .