Horst Sommerlatte

Horst Sommerlatte, 2010

Horst Sommerlatte (born March 10, 1940 in Dessau ) was Professor of Industrial Design at the Kassel Art College until 2005 . He designed u. a. the first interior of the Airbus A300 . His designs for the Recaro seats for the manufacturer Recaro have won several design awards. He is married to the designer Marlies M. Sommerlatte, with whom he worked on several design projects; the couple lives in Kassel.

Life

Horst Sommerlatte was born in Dessau in 1940. The Bauhaus there, the autobahn to Berlin known as the “ Dessau race track ”, the Elbe as an important waterway, the local Junkers aircraft works and the uncle who traveled the world as a pilot at Junkers all shaped the development of the young Sommerlatte. His interest in the development and design of means of transport, which he discovered early on, led Horst Sommerlatte, after an apprenticeship as a machine fitter, to study in Berlin and Kassel, where he studied industrial design with Herbert Oestreich until 1966 .

Professional background

Sommerlatte was involved as chief designer in the development of the Airbus A 300 from the start. He designed a flexible interior system in modular construction. Until the end of 1976 he worked for Airbus Industrie in Munich, Hamburg and Toulouse.

As early as 1971, Horst Sommerlatte was developing automobile seats for the southern German company Recaro. His models, optimized with regard to orthopedics, safety and comfort, have won multiple awards and sold millions of times worldwide. The design of the Recaro Aircomfort aircraft passenger seat, with which the planes of more than 35 airlines are equipped, also came from the pen of Sommerlattes. In addition, he and his wife designed complete vehicle interiors on behalf of Recaro.

In 1977 Horst Sommerlatte was appointed professor for industrial design with a focus on industrial design for the public, work and individual areas at the University of Kassel Art College. He was significantly involved in the establishment of the “Innovation Management” supplementary course, which combines knowledge from the fields of economics, ergonomics, architecture and social sciences and thus enables interdisciplinary systems thinking.

His teaching and research activities took Sommerlatte to Brazil, Japan and Finland, among others. For three years, Sommerlatte was an honorary board member at the Design Center Hessen.

Sommerlatte worked freelance with his wife in the field of transport design for airplanes, trams and trains. The couple's designs were realized in Europe, the USA, Mexico, Brazil and Japan.

Sommerlatte has been a member of the supervisory board of a Berlin communications agency since 2013.

Design philosophy

The needs, perceptual abilities and physical characteristics of people ("human engineering") are the focus of Horst Sommerlatte's design philosophy. Creativity and innovations have to face these conditions.

As an industrial designer, Sommerlatte represents a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to the design process. His diverse designs, which have been reproduced a thousand times and prove their quality in daily use, are characterized by high quality and a functional style based on the Bauhaus.

Work

• 1966/1967: Hansa Jet: Interior design for the HFB 320 Hansa Jet (business airliner)
• 1967–1976: Airbus Industries: Interior design for the Airbus 300 as chief designer, development of a modular system for a new family of aircraft
• 1971–1987: Keiper Recaro: industrial design for aircraft passenger seats - the Recaro Aircomfort family
• 1971–1987: Keiper Recaro: automobile seat design; Development of a modular system for comfort and sport seats
• 1980–1989: Mercedes-Benz do Brasil: Interior design for a long-distance bus
• 1982: Fritz Fend : industrial design for the Fend cabin scooter (with the participation of students)
• 1983: Deutsche Bundesbahn: Participation in the design competition for the new interregional train (with the participation of students)
• 1985: LTU: Interior design for the Lockheed L-1011 as a vacation plane
• 1985–2004: University of Kassel: Participation in the establishment of the additional course "Innovation management taking into account the consequences of technology"
• 1986–1996: Parat: Industrial design for tool cases, pilot cases, hard-shell cases and laptop cases
• 1986: Wilkens Bremer silversmiths: industrial design of cutlery made of stainless steel
• 1987–1990: KVG : interior and exterior design of the first Kassel low-floor tram (with the participation of students)
• 1988: Meyra: Design studies for electric wheelchairs
• 1988–1991: Karmann : Product improvement VW Corrado , interior study for the VW Roadster F1 in collaboration with Christoph Böhler; Caravan interior design
• 1989–1991: Co-founding of the International Transport Design Forum in Lugano
• 1990: Volkswagen: Industrial design for new VW Polo seats in collaboration with Christoph Böhler
• 1991–1993: Lear Nossag : Seat design for Opel and Volkswagen models
• 1994–1996: Nissan: seat design for sports coupés (together with Werner Schulze-Bahr)
• 1995/1996: Thyssen-Henschel: Interior studies for the Transrapid in collaboration with Werner Schulze-Bahr

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  Airbus A 300 B: Final draft of the interior design

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  Keiper Recaro: CSE headquarters

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  Wilkens Bremer Silberwaren: cutlery

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  Available: pilot's case, brown leather version

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  KVG low-floor tram, side view

Awards

• 1980: Design Center Stuttgart : Design Award for the Recaro seats N, LS and C
• 1986: Design Center Stuttgart: Design Award for the orthopedics of the Recaro seats
• 1987: Design Center Stuttgart: Design Award for the Recaro seat GSE
• 1990: BUSSE Longlife Design Award for the Recaro LX seat

Publications

• Human engineering factors in the design of the A 300B interior . Airbus Progress Report 5/1, 1971, Toulouse.
• Design as a principle of order . Süddeutsche Zeitung of April 27, 1972, supplement “Contemporary Form”.
• Design: arte e técnica . Design for Keiper-Acil, Volkswagen and Mercedes Ponte Aerea No. 21, 1983, San Paulo, Brazil.
• Airbus A 300 Interior . Car Styling 52, Autum, Japan.
• Interior design and passenger transport . Transport Design Forum / Lugano 1989.

swell

• European Airbus A 300 . Messerschmitt-Bölkow releases, Oct./Nov. 1968, Munich.
• Manfred Sack: For the first time there from the beginning. Industrial designer Horst Sommerlatte at the Airbus A 300B , in: Form 52. IV 1970.
• Anthropo-technical factors of the interior design of the A 300B , Airbus Progress Report 5/1971.
• Interior design of passenger cabins - industrial design at Deutsche Airbus GmbH . iA Report - DAB information sheets, 1972.
• Ingo Klöcker: The Airbus - the virgin and the child , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung of April 27, 1972, supplement “Contemporary Form”.
• 150 Years of German Design - Report on the Airbus A300 B , IDZ - Product Form History, 1985, Berlin.
• Recaro & Sommerlatte , in: Car Styling Quarterly , No. 53, 1985, Japan.
• So that you feel good. New look for LTU: The Kassel design couple Marlies and Horst Sommerlatte . LTU Magazine 2/1986, New York.
• Christiane Oppermann: Success of the mobile seats , in: Manager Magazin , 3/1986.
• Christiane Oppermann: Master by gram and millimeter , in: Manager Magazin , 3/1986.
• Christiane Oppermann: Horst Sommerlatte and Keiper Recaro . in: Manager Magazin , 3/1986.
• Christiane Oppermann: Recaro and Sommerlatte , in: Manager Magazin , 3/1986.
• Vehicular Language . AXIS. Quarterly on trends in design, vol. 18th winter 1986.
• HNA Kassel - newspaper report on the exhibition stand of Hessian universities in Hanover Orthopedic seat GHK - main attraction. 1987.
• Design Journal No. 44 Art Center Inc, Seoul, Korea Portfolio: Special Feature by Nations Federal Republic of Germany: Horst Sommerlatte, University of Kassel, 1991.
• See the whole in detail . Kassel Cultural 1992.
• Tokai University, Tokyo - Japan at the European Center in Vaedback, Denmark Symposium on an Aesthetic Sence in Japan - Lecture: Comparison to Sence in Europe, 1995.

Web links

• Website about the industrial designers Marlies and Horst Sommerlatte

Individual evidence

1. ^ Family Redlich