René Spitz

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René Spitz (* 1968 in Rheinbach ) is a German design scientist and communications consultant.

biography

Spitz completed a degree in Ancient History, Middle and Modern History, German and Communication Studies at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and at the University of Cologne . There he received his doctorate in 1997 at the Philosophical Faculty with a thesis on the political history of the Ulm School of Design . The Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach Foundation , Essen, sponsored the publication of the dissertation in a revised version. She was u. a. reviewed in form 183/2002, l'architecture d'aujourd'hui 342/2002, design report 6/2002, Frankfurter Rundschau April 18, 2002, Deutschlandfunk Büchermarkt July 21, 2002, form + Zweck 20/2003, print 57/2003 , Tagesspiegel September 18, 2003 and agglutinations.com , December 2, 2003.

From 1988 to 1991 he was a partner in the Munich advertising agency Oesterle, Spitz and Jaeger and worked on the recommendation of the corporate identity consultant Otl Aicher u. a. for the company durst, Brixen (South Tyrol).

Spitz has been publishing design reviews since 1994, including more than 350 articles on the WDR radio program , as well as occasionally in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in the design magazine form and in the Austrian art magazine Parnass. Since 2002 he has taken on several teaching positions on the history, theory and criticism of design, including a. at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal , the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences and the Cologne University of Applied Sciences , as well as lectures on the social responsibility of designers and others. a. held at Columbia University , New York, the Parsons School of Design , New York, the University of Johannesburg , the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts (XAFA) and in Jerusalem.

From 1998 to 2014 he worked as a partner in the management consultancy rendel & spitz, Cologne. From 2001 to 2006 the office building (architects: b & k + / Arno Brandlhuber, Bernd Kniess), the narrowest building in Cologne, offered space on the ground floor for installations during the IMM furniture fair in Cologne as part of the so-called Passagen program. Participated in it u. a. the designers and architects Konstantin Grcic (Munich), Johanna Grawunder (Los Angeles), Timo Salli (Helsinki), Ross Lovegrove (London), Greg Lynn (Los Angeles), Tokujin Yoshioka (Tokyo), Andrea Branzi (Milan), Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (Paris) and Stefan Ytterborn (Stockholm). The Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich has added Greg Lynn's spatial sculpture from the installation in 2002 to its permanent collection.

In 2003 the International Forum for Design (IFG) Ulm appointed him to the advisory board. From 2004 to 2007 he was its chairman and was responsible for the programmatic realignment of the IFG Ulm. Together with the advisory boards Ruedi Baur (Zurich / Paris), Christopher Dell (Berlin), Bernd Kniess (Cologne / Hamburg), Klaus K. Loenhart (Munich / Graz), Regula Stämpfli (Brussels), Dieter Bosch (Stuttgart) and Heinz H Hahn (Neu-Ulm) he developed the so-called hearings and the funding program Designing Politics - The Politics of Design of the IFG Ulm. Participants in the hearings or speakers were a. John Maeda (Cambridge, Mass.), Jean-Philippe Vassal (Paris) and Peter Sloterdijk (Karlsruhe).

Together with Martin Rendel , he was the curator responsible for exhibitions a. a. in the Haus der Gegenwart , Munich, New Museum Nuremberg , Museum of Applied Art Cologne , Dortmunder U , Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg and Today Art Museum, Beijing. In 2015 he curated the exhibition SYSTEM DESIGN. Over 100 Years of Chaos in Everyday Life in the Museum of Applied Arts Cologne.

Since 2015 he has been teaching and researching at the RFH Rheinische Fachhochschule Cologne as a professor for design science, design management and communication management. He has been head of the Media Design (Bachelor of Arts) course there since 2019.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • SYSTEM DESIGN. Over 100 Years of Chaos in Everyday Life : Museum for Applied Arts Cologne, 2015
  • Invisible things , curated together with Martin Rendel and Wu Xuefu: Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg, 2014
  • Invisible Things , curated with Martin Rendel and Wu Xuefu: Today Art Museum, 2013
  • Row house cooking , curated together with Martin Rendel: Dortmunder U, 2011; Museum of Applied Arts Cologne, 2011
  • Neighborhood , curated together with Martin Rendel: BMW World Munich, 2010; New Museum Nuremberg, 2010
  • In German terraced houses , curated together with Martin Rendel: Haus der Gegenwart Munich, 2008; Museum of Applied Arts Cologne, 2010; Museum of Ethnology Hamburg, 2011

Awards (selection)

Publications (selection)

  • 100 Books All Designers Should Know , ed. by René Spitz and Marcel Trauzenberg, Stuttgart 2019. ISBN 978-3-89986-319-2 .
  • SYSTEM DESIGN. Over 100 Years of Chaos in Everyday Life , ed. by Petra Hesse and René Spitz, Cologne 2015. ISBN 978-3-9811342-9-2 .
  • “Design is not a Science”: Otl Aicher's Constitutional Putsch at the HfG Ulm and His Credo for the Social Responsibility of Designers , in Design Issues Winter 2015, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 7-17 ( http: // www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/desi/31/1 ).
  • HfG Ulm. Brief history of the Hochschule für Gestaltung / Concise History of the Ulm School of Design , A5 / 06, ed. by Jens Müller, Zurich 2014. ISBN 978-3-03778-413-6 .
  • The thought leaders of sustainable design and the 1930s to 1970s . In: The History of Sustainable Design , ed. by Simone Fuhs, Davide Brocchi, Michael Maxein, Bernd Draser, Bad Homburg 2013. ISBN 978-3-8886-4521-1 .
  • HfG IUP IFG. Ulm 1968-2008 . Edited by the International Forum for Design IFG Ulm under the directorship of Regula Stämpfli. With original interviews by Ruedi Baur, Gerhard Curdes, Christopher Dell, Fred Hochstrasser, Bernd Kniess, Siegfried Maser, Ton Matton, Miguel Robles-Duran, Sabine Süß, Regula Stämpfli, Florian Walzel and Alexander Wetzig. With a text by Peter Sloterdijk. Bilingual German / English, Ulm 2012. ISBN 978-3-9802864-2-8
  • Design: Orders from the bottom, 3rd Ulm conversation , Ulm 2012. ISBN 978-3-8442-3213-4
  • Chairs, do you want to live forever? , in ff. 3 Reminder, ed. Julia Meer, Sebastian Glück. Wuppertal 2012.
  • Dreams of life on dentist chairs, or: the chair from the designer and the image from the architect . In: Architectural furniture from Aalto to Zumthor / Furniture by Architects from Aalto to Zumthor , ed. by Petra Hesse and Gabriele Lueg, Cologne 2012. ISBN 978-3863351274
  • Introduction to: "Is the Bauhaus up to date?" By Tomás Maldonado, published in "ulm" 8/9, 1963. In: Thinking about design: A reader for designers and architects, ed. by Thomas Edelmann and Gerrit Terstiege, Basel 2010. ISBN 3-034605-15-3 .
  • Lemmata function and postmodernism , in: Dictionary Design: Conceptual perspectives of design . Edited by Michael Erlhoff, Tim Marshall. Basel / Boston 2007. ISBN 3-764377-38-0 .
  • Werkbund and HfG Ulm. In: Gerda Breuer (ed.): The good life. Deutscher Werkbund after 1945. Tübingen 2007, pp. 186–195, ISBN 3-803032-07-5 .
  • Dear diary · dear diary . Edited with Martin Rendel. Stuttgart / London 2006. ISBN 3-936681-09-0 .
  • Design becomes an issue , in: The Design Journal 3/2005, 2-12.
  • fill the gap · unfilled gap . Edited with Martin Rendel. Stuttgart / London 2005. ISBN 3-932565-51-7 .
  • The defense of cultural freedom against its financiers , in: 50 Years of the University of Design Foundation - formerly Geschwister-Scholl-Foundation. Ulm 2004, 27-43.
  • not identified · unidentified . Edited with Martin Rendel. Stuttgart / London 2004. ISBN 3-932565-40-1 .
  • blooming gap · blossming gap . Edited with Martin Rendel. Stuttgart / London 2003. ISBN 3-932565-22-3 .
  • hfg ulm. the look behind the foreground. the political history of the ulm college for design 1953-1968 . Stuttgart / London 2002. ISBN 3-932565-16-9 .
  • hfg ulm. The view behind the foreground. The Political History of the Ulm School of Design 1953-1968 . Stuttgart / London 2002. ISBN 3-932565-17-7 .
  • looking the wide · expanding the gap . Edited with Martin Rendel. Stuttgart / London 2002. ISBN 3-932565-28-2 .
  • courage for the gap daring the gap . Edited with Martin Rendel. Stuttgart / London 2001. ISBN 3-932565-22-3 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Spitz, René
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German design critic and brand consultant
DATE OF BIRTH 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Rheinbach