Otto Kuhler
Otto Kuhler (born July 31, 1894 in Remscheid , † August 5, 1977 in Denver , Colorado ) was a German-American industrial designer and artist. According to the specialist journal “Trains”, Kuhler designed more locomotives and wagons to be streamlined than its competitors Cret, Dreyfuss and Loewy combined. His comprehensive concepts for modernizing the American railroad companies still have an impact on the world's railways today. He was also a prolific artist in the industrial landscape and later in the American West.
Kuhler emigrated to the United States in 1923 and became an American citizen in 1928. He had previously married Simonne Gillot, daughter of a Belgian doctor. The marriage resulted in two children, daughter Winona, married Zabriskie, and Renaldo , a scientific illustrator and creator of the fantasy world of Rocaterrania .
youth
Kuhler was born the only child to an anvil foundry family. He planned to study electrical engineering, but after a school exchange with Belgium he came back with a sketchbook that clearly demonstrated his talent for drawing. At the age of 19 he was commissioned to illustrate a catalog of steam locomotives. He took part in the First World War, was given leave of absence after a car accident and was later called up again. He then commanded a forest railway troop in Belgium, where he met his future wife.
Early work
A design on a Mercedes chassis sent to the Leipzig bodywork company Kathe & Sons won a gold medal in 1913. Kuhler then worked as a stylist at NAG -Autowerk in Berlin and also designed film sets for Willi Wauer's silent film "The Tunnel". He also became co-editor of the trade journal “Der Motor” and then designed car bodies for European car manufacturers. Influenced by Joseph Pennell, he learned the art of etching after the First World War and enrolled at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . After emigrating to the USA in 1923, he worked as a freelance artist in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His subjects were industrial landscapes, steelworks and locomotive construction.
Brill Company
Kuhler opened a studio in New York in 1928 and promoted streamlining the antiquated railway rolling stock in the media to make it more attractive for passengers. The stock market crash and the subsequent depression undermined his efforts. It was not until three years later that he received his first design assignment from the Brill Company , which took part in a Union Pacific railway company competition for a streamlined train, which the Pullman Corporation won. In the then realized train M-10000 , ideas of the other two competitors should also have been realized. For Brill, Kuhler designed the prototype of the so-called PCC tram for Chicago and later the “The Rebel” multiple unit for the Gulf, Mobile & Northern rail company. The parent company Brills, American Car & Foundry, used Kuhler's talents during the 1930s to design the growing number of their local rail buses, the high point of which in 1940 was the Janus-headed multiple units for the Susquehanna railway company.
American Locomotive Company (ALCo)
ALCo employed Kuhler in 1931 for the advertising department and from the following year as a design consultant. His first task was the external revision of a diesel shunting locomotive HH600 , which was a sales success as the S-1 and the following variants. Subsequently, Milwaukee Road wanted four streamlined trains for the route between Chicago and Minneapolis because there was a lot of competition there. While the wagons were being built in the company's own workshops, the class A No. 1 to 4 locomotives came from ALCo. Kuhler embellished her paneling (like an inverted bathtub) with careful coloring and additional ingredients. Kuhler's shadow plates on the second generation beaver tail observation car were a sensation, as were the more powerful F7 locomotives , which Kuhler once again "styled", as he called it. In recognition of its excellent streamlined design, the first F7 locomotive No. 100 had a plaque on the cylinder casing with the words "Speedlined by Otto Kuhler" and a facsimile of his signature.
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O)
As the art director of the B&O customer magazine, Kuhler also developed the royal blue / gray color scheme and the company's modernized logo. When B&O opened up to the idea of modernizing their Washington-New York service, in 1937 Kuhler was able to realize his idea of the “bullet nose”, which became known as “cooler”, on a Pacific steam locomotive of the “President” class. The result was the Royal Blue train - Loewy later attached a projectile nose to his Pennsylvania Railroad S1 locomotive destined for the New York World's Fair . Since the B&O route ended in New Jersey, the passengers were brought to Manhattan by buses, which Kuhler also styled and provided with a temporary air conditioning system thanks to pole ice. The three-man office continued to stream-style locomotives for ALCo customers; the only exception: Baldwin's I-5 for the New Haven Shoreliner train . For the Lehigh Valley, he streamstyled locomotives and wagons for the John Wilkes and the return train - possibly the most interesting Kuhler locomotive (his "Darth Vader"). As a consultant to the architecture departments of the railroad companies, Kuhler helped set up nine stations like that of Des Moines , Iowa, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
American Car & Foundry
The beginning of World War II put an end to passenger comfort efforts. Kuhler still styled the DL-109 diesel locomotive from ALCo, of which the New Haven Railway Company was able to order 60 pieces thanks to the approval of the War Production Board. Now the restriction to railway design and Kuhler's German accent proved to be a disadvantage. A sure sign of this was the fact that Kuhler was cheated of the fee for the design of the steam locomotive Ps-5 - he himself described the locomotive as his best design - by the Southern Railway. Eventually, Kuhler had to give up his office and take a position at AC&F, where he developed double-decker sleeping cars, subway cars with their own windows for standing room and much more. Most of Kuhler's patent applications date from his time at AC&F. But in 1947 he was fired on the occasion of one of the many changes.
Farmer and painter
The Kuhlers sold their home and studio on a hill near Blauvelt, New York, and bought a ranch in the Rocky Mountains near Pine, Colorado. Cattle breeding and painting were now on Kuhler's agenda, the results of which can be seen in many American museums. The farmhouse burned down and was rebuilt by the Kuhlers. At 75, Kuhler sold the ranch and moved with his wife to Santa Fé, New Mexico to continue painting. Eight years later they moved to Denver, Colorado, where Kuhler died at the age of 83.
Design works by Kuhlers
- Car bodies for Kathe & Sons, Austro-Daimler, NAG, Snutsel Père & Fils, Delage, Fiat and Hansa 1913–18
- Streamlining concept published for the New York Central J-1 conventional steam locomotive in 1928
- ALCo HH600 diesel shunting locomotive (retained in the following generations of shunting locomotives like S-1) 1934
- AC & F / ALCo “The Rebel” multiple unit for Gulf, Mobile & Northern 1934 and other AC & F rail buses
- Brill prototype 7001 of the PCC tram for Chicago 1935
- ALCo A-1 to A-4 Streamlined Steam Locomotives for Hiawatha Trains on Milwaukee Road 1935
- Remington combined typewriter with table 1936
- Color scheme for "Mountaineer Limited" from Ontario & Western 1937
- Color scheme, signet, streamlined locomotive P-7a and trains for "Royal Blue" and others for B&O 1937
- White Motor Co. buses for B&O passenger service
- Styling outside and inside of the subway car (Pittsburgh Pressed steel Co.) for City of Philadelphia
- Baldwin I-5 steam locomotives for "Shoreliner" of the New Haven RR
- ALCo F7 steam locomotives and Hiawatha trains on Milwaukee Road 1938 with shadow plates on the observation car
- Redesign of the gasoline-electric multiple unit train 17 (Osgood-Bradley) for Lehigh Valley in 1938
- Overall design of the "Asa Packer" train for Lehigh Valley in 1938
- Streamlined K-5 steam locomotives and "John Wilkes" and "Black Diamond" trains for Lehigh Valley
- ALCo DL-109 diesel locomotives, some with booster 1940; Successor PA-1 inherited many design features
- Overall design of the luxury trains "The Rebel" pulled by DL-109 for GMN & O
- AC&F commuter railcar 1001-3 for Susquehanna Road 1940
- Streamlined steam locomotive Ps-4 for "The Tennesseean" of the Southern Railway in 1941
- Heat-insulated food container (company unknown)
- AC&F subway cars for New York City and Boston 1946
- Proposed overhead conveyor for Denver in 1948
bibliography
- The German bodywork - a warning to the German bodybuilder, Der Motor (Berlin) 192?
- Streamlining the Railroads, Product Engineering, June 1934
- What Price Beauty of Line and Color, Metal Progress, August 1934
- Appeal Design in Railroad Equipment, Railway Age, Nov. 30, 1935
- Style and advertising in the railway industry, Verkehrswirtschaftliche Rundschau (Vienna), August 1936
- (with Robert S. Henry) Portraits of the Iron Horse (1937; reprinted 1976)
- On the Railroad, by Robert S. Henry, illustrated by Kuhler (1938)
- (with Donald Wilhelm) In the Steel Mill (1939)
- My Iron Journey - an autobiography (1967, 2nd edition 1978)
- The etchings of Otto Kuhler, Kennedy Galleries, New York 1985
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/arts/design/22strau.html "His Secret World, Opening to Tourists", New York Times article on Renaldo Kuhler, February 18, 2009
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 2, 2016 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. Information about the documentary Rocaterrania
- ↑ Wolfgang Messerschmidt: The fastest of the rails . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-613-01340-1 , p. 86 .
- ↑ Hans-Erhard Lessing: Kuhler's streamlined locomotives - for Otto Kuhler's 110th birthday . in: 2005 Yearbook of Locomotives . Podszun, Brilon 2004, ISBN 3-86133-362-7 , pp. 33-46 .
- ^ Hans-Erhard Lessing: Railway deluxe - Otto Kuhler designed for America . Culture & Technology 3/2005, p. 565-59 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kuhler, Otto |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-American industrial designer and artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 31, 1894 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Remscheid |
| DATE OF DEATH | 5th August 1977 |
| Place of death | Denver , Colorado |