Günter Kupetz

Standard fountain bottle from 1971

Günter Kupetz (born November 20, 1925 in Rüdersdorf near Berlin ; † March 24, 2018 ) was a German industrial designer and university professor .

Life

In 1946, Kupetz began studying architecture, but soon switched to graphics and finally to Bernhard Heiliger's sculpting class . In the early 1950s, influenced by Scandinavian design, he began to develop everyday objects. From 1954 to 1961 he worked for WMF , where he designed, among other things, a lead glass whiskey set that Louis Armstrong called "the most beautiful in the world". He is considered one of the most important designers at WMF. He participated in the 1957 Milan Triennale and 1958 at the World Exhibition in Brussels with some designs .

In 1959, Kupetz was one of the founding members of the Association of German Industrial Designers (VDID) and thus one of the “first” designers of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1971 he accepted an appointment at today's Kassel Art Academy of the University of Kassel . There, Kupetz taught consumer goods design. Together with Herbert Oestreich, he developed this subject there, and before that he taught at the Werkkunstschule Kassel . In 1973 he was appointed to the Berlin University of the Arts . There he worked as a professor for product design until his retirement.

On the occasion of his eightieth birthday, a special exhibition on his life's work took place in the Berlin Bauhaus Archive from April 5 to June 5, 2006.

“We have to part with the familiar image of the artist in industry, dreaming of good shape, fiddling with his spoon, with the last craftsman in industry, as he was once called. We will have to get used to a new type of designer ... It goes without saying that this designer is just as familiar with production and sales issues as his client. "

- Günter Kupetz, 1959

Kupetz was married to the designer Sigrid Kupetz (1926–2017) for the first time.

Günter Kupetz found his final resting place in the forest cemetery in Birkenwerder .

plant

Of his more than 1000 designs, the Pril washing-up liquid bottle from 1960, the push-button telephone for AEG Telefunken from 1962 and the chicken grill for the Wienerwald restaurants from 1963 are among the most famous. In 1968/69 he designed the standard fountain bottle for mineral water , also known colloquially as the pearl bottle , which was manufactured around five billion times from 1971 to around 2013 and is therefore the most common reusable packaging in Germany. Kupetz himself said: "I think the design is timeless and I would say that it cannot really be improved."

Prices

• Federal Good Form Award for the pearl bottle 1982
• Honorary award of the German Environmental Aid 2010

literature

• Marcus Botsch: The mineral water bottle by Günter Kupetz , Verlag Form, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-89802-003-7 .
• Andrej Kupetz (Ed.): Günter Kupetz - Industrial Design . Birkhäuser 2006, ISBN 3-7643-7688-0 .
• Christian Marquart: Industrial culture - industrial design. A piece of German economic and design history. The founders of the Association of German Industrial Designers , Berlin [approx. 1993], pp. 137-159.

Web links

• Literature by and about Günter Kupetz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Design lexicon about Günter Kupetz
• German industrial design from the very beginning
• Poster for the Wuppertal exhibition
• Peter-Philipp Schmitt: The man behind the bottle. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . July 25, 2015, accessed July 25, 2015 . 
• Website about Günter Kupetz by Andrej Kupetz: kupetzdesign.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Exhibition poster ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Back to Kassel ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ Exhibition announcement 2006 ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Prof. Günter Kupetz. In: family obituary. Der Tagesspiegel , April 1, 2018, accessed on April 3, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Eight masterpieces of modern design
6. ↑ Honorary Award of the German Environmental Aid ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.