Horst Michel

Horst Alfred Otto Michel (born September 25, 1904 in Zicher ; † April 21, 1989 in Weimar ) was a German designer who had a decisive influence on product design in the GDR up to the early 1960s. Between 1946 and 1970 he was professor for industrial design and interior design at what would later become the University of Architecture and Construction in Weimar .

Life

After an apprenticeship as a pattern draftsman , Michel studied "decorative painting" from 1926 to 1929 at the State University of Fine Arts in Berlin , where he taught from 1933 to 1943 as a lecturer in textile design and weaving. From 1929 to 1933 he worked in Bruno Paul's studio in Berlin. In the last years of the war he was employed as an artistic assistant for the Foreign Office in setting up alternative quarters.

From 1946 to 1970 Michel taught as a professor for industrial design and from 1954 also for interior design at the later University of Architecture and Building Weimar (today: Bauhaus University Weimar ). The Institute for Interior Design he founded at the Weimar University was responsible for the design support of individual consumer goods industries by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of 1954, which was taken over by the institute's employees on site: Wolfgang Dyroff (furniture and fittings), Rudolf Großmann and Hellfried Lack (upholstery and seating), Sigrid Kölbel (carpets and decorative fabrics), Heinz Melzer (tiled stove, heating and cooking appliances). In the exhibition "new life - new living" (1962) in Berlin-Fennpfuhl, the Weimar Institute demonstrated the possibilities of modern living in the GDR with the complete furnishing of a three-room apartment (furniture, textiles, color design).

In 1961 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Technical University of Dresden .

Act

Model living room at the Leipzig Trade Fair (1952)

Michel remained committed to the design maxims of the Deutscher Werkbund throughout his life , which he tried to implement creatively in the sense of the Good Form despite the difficult supply situation and the ideological formalism debate in the GDR . His initiatives against kitsch were just as legendary as his mottos (“If only good is produced, nothing bad can be sold”). In 1957, the Weimar Institute presented itself with a large exhibition in the “Institute for New Technical Form” on Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt , thus ensuring one of the extremely rare German-German design encounters. In the same year, Michel was the only designer from the GDR to be awarded a gold medal at the Triennale in Milan . As chairman of the design section in the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR , Michel curated the applied arts department of the V German Art Exhibition in Dresden in 1962 . The selection and presentation were criticized by Walter Ulbricht , the exhibition curator discredited. As a result, the GDR's design-political center was completely relocated to Berlin in the Central Institute for Design, which later became the office for industrial design .

Fonts

Cover of a Nazi propaganda pamphlet designed by Michel (1939)

• If only good is produced, nothing bad can be sold. Weimar, 1955 Digitized edition
• "Tradition" or "Novelty" Weimar, 1956 (Yellow Booklet 2) Digitized edition
• What must be done to improve the quality of our consumer goods? . Weimar 1956 (yellow booklet 1) Digitized edition
• Why is the reasonable modern? Weimar [1957] (Yellow Book 3) Digitized edition
• Report on the exhibition of the Institute for Interior Design at the Weimar University of Architecture and Building in Darmstadt, [Institute for New Technical Form] from April 6th to 28th, 1957 . Weimar, 1957 Digitized edition
• What else can be done to improve and increase the production of our consumer goods? Weimar 1958 Digitized edition
• About the value of things around us Weimar 1960 (Yellow Booklet 4) Digitized edition
• 10 years institute for interior design at the University of Architecture and Construction Weimar . Weimar, 1961 Digitized edition
• Industrieformgestaltung Weimar 1962 (yellow booklet 5) Digitized edition

literature

• Horst Michel, shape design . Exhib. Cat. Museum of Arts and Crafts Leipzig. Leipzig, 1979
• Hein Köster: H. Michel. Biography and contemporary history . In: form + Zweck, 11th vol., 1979, H. 5, pp. 8-16
• Heinz Hirdina: Design for the series . Design in the GDR 1949–1985. Dresden 1988
• Hein Köster: painful arrival in the modern age . Industrial design at the V German Art Exhibition. In: Wunderwirtschaft. GDR consumer culture in the 1960s. Ed. New Society for Fine Arts. Cologne, Weimar u. Berlin 1996, 96-103.
• Petra Eisele u. Siegfried Gronert (ed.): Horst Michel - GDR design . Proceedings of the colloquium. Weimar 2004. ISBN 3-86068-214-8
• Siegfried Gronert u. Elke Beilfuß (ed.): Horst Michel. Designer in Weimar . The exhibition. Weimar 2004. ISBN 3-86068-225-3
• Siegfried Gronert: Horst Michel and the Institute for Interior Design. Weimar's contribution to industrial design in the GDR . In: »But we are! We want! And we create! «From the Grand Ducal Art School to the Bauhaus University Weimar, 1860–2010. Edited by Frank Simon-Ritz, Klaus-Jürgen Winkler a. Gerd Zimmermann. Volume 2. Weimar 2012, pp. 147-174. ISBN 978-3-86068-427-6

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Honorary doctoral students of the TH / TU Dresden. Technical University of Dresden, accessed on February 4, 2015 .