Hans Ehrich

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Hans Ehrich 2008.

Hans Ehrich (born September 25, 1942 in Kulosaari [now Helsinki ]) is a Swedish product designer . Together with his partner Tom Ahlström , he founded the Swedish design company A&E Design in 1968 , a company that Ehrich still manages today (2019). Internationally, Ehrich is one of Sweden's leading industrial designers and is called the "Grand Seigneur" in Swedish product design. Ehrich is based in Stockholm and Berlin .

Youth and education

Ehrich (right) with the "Optima" electric car in 1967.
Sports coupé, Ehrich's Turin study from 1965.
"2.5 liter Gran Turismo Convertible", study from 1965.

Hans Ehrich's mother was the Swede Liten-Karin Sundberg and his father the German artist Otto Ehrich . After emigrating to Finland in 1936 , their son Hans was born in Kulosaari in 1942. During the Finnish Continuation War , the family fled to Sweden in 1944.

Ehrich received his school education in Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Italy. He completed his Abitur at the Scuola Germanica di Roma . Ehrich showed his talent as a skilled draftsman in early sketches from his youth. At the age of 16, for example, he made an interior study of a convertible with ergonomically designed seats, headrests and a split rear bench.

From 1962 to 1967 he studied at Konstfackskolan (Swedish for art school), a Swedish art college founded in Stockholm in 1844 . During his studies he went on study trips to Milan and Turin , where he met the Italian industrial designer Giorgetto Giugiaro . Giugiaro offered Ehrich a job in the then newly founded Italdesign . However, Ehrich did not accept the offer. The study visit to Turin resulted in a long series of car studies, including a two-door sports coupé and a "2.5 liter Gran Turismo Convertible".

Ehrich's interest in cars was also reflected in his thesis. It was a three-seater electric car for city traffic, called "Optima", which he developed together with fellow student Roland Lindhé. Optima's self-supporting body was to be made of plastic, had airless tires filled with foam rubber, seat belts and a softly molded, shock-absorbing interior. Optima caused a sensation and although the car of the future only existed in model form, inquiries from interested buyers even came from the USA . Optima won first prize in Ford's design competition which was awarded in Munich in 1967 .

Ehrich met his future partner, Tom Ahlström, at the Konstfackskolan. Ahlström completed his studies in 1968, one year after Ehrich. Then they both decided to set up their own design company called A&E Design .

plant

Red dot design award for A&E Design 1999 and 2001.
Museum stool "Stockholm II" (red) and children's folding stool "Snupi", both designed by Hans Ehrich.
Ehrich's latest work for A&E Design: residual current circuit breaker (2015) and timer (2014).

A&E Designs' first order was a paint brush with a handle-friendly shaft made of polypropylene . The customer was satisfied and the brush was a sales success. That was the beginning of the design of a long line of products made of different plastics, manufactured using different techniques.

A&E Design quickly became known outside of Sweden and was awarded for a variety of products, such as the dish-washing brush, which was developed in 1975 for the Norwegian company Jordan A / S and which is still in production, with over 80 million copies by 2008 . Ahlström and Ehrich specialized early on in the design of aids for the disabled, for example the Clean shower and toilet chair for hospitals and nursing homes.

The M80 waiting number system with number display for AB Turn-O-Matic , which brought order to queues , also became known worldwide . Another successful product was the Stockholm II folding stool , which was originally designed for the National Museum in Stockholm and is now appreciated by museum visitors worldwide. By 2017, the Stockholm II folding stool will be available in over 1600 museums worldwide.

The rinsing brush and the M80 numbering system are represented in the permanent design exhibition of the Stockholm National Museum and the Stockholm II folding stool can be found in the design collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich . The international successes have contributed to the fact that Hans Ehrich has been on the jury of the renowned Red dot design award since 2002 .

literature

  • Widengren, Gunilla: Refuel och handen, Konstfack 150 år. Page One Publishing, Stockholm 1994, ISBN 91-7125-018-2 .
  • A&E Design - The Book , Business History Publishing, Stockholm (2018), ISBN 978-91-984266-4-9

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stockholms bilsalong 2006. (PDF; 1.2 MB)
  2. ↑ Hans Ehrich's sketch from 1959.
  3. ^ Electric car "Optima", Hans Ehrich's illustration from 1967
  4. ↑ Konstfack 150 år (1994), pp. 282-283.
  5. ↑ Konstfack 150 år (1994), p. 282.
  6. ↑ "Clean" shower and toilet chair
  7. ↑ Stockholm II: Prisbelönt svensk design. ( Memento of the original from January 20, 2014 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.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stockholmii.se
  8. ^ Red Dot interview with the Swedish designer Hans Ehrich.

Web links

Commons : Hans Ehrich  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Ehrich, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish designer
DATE OF BIRTH September 25, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Kulosaari