Tõnis Käo
Tõnis Käo (born February 3, 1940 in Laimjala , Estonia ; † July 3, 2016 in Munich ) was an Estonian-German industrial designer.
Life
Tõnis Käo (German: Tönis Käo ) was born in 1940 on the island of Saaremaa . He studied at the Folkwang School of Design in Essen . From 1969 to 1991 he was an industrial designer at Siemens AG in Munich . The area of responsibility was the design of products and product systems for communication, security, traffic and manufacturing technology as well as household appliances. Käo has been developing the design for numerous devices since the 1970s, including vacuum cleaners (for example the Super58 from 1978), dishwashers and hair dryers, such as the hair dryer MH1715 2000 from 1977. The first one he designed together with Herbert Krämer is best known mass-market telephone with keypad for the German Federal Post Office and the Siemens C2 portable from 1988, the company's first mobile phone. Between 1980 and 1982 Käo developed models for credit card-sized cell phones and trays in A4 size. From 1983 he headed the Siemens design studio.
From 1992 to 2005 Käo taught as a professor for industrial design at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal and developed the teaching concept design in research . From 2004 he was scientific director of the Bergisches Institut for product development and innovation management .
Tõnis Käo was married to the project and interior designer Sarah Pelikan (* 1947). The couple lived in Munich.
Projects and exhibitions carried out (selection)
- 1994/95: Annual theme and colloquium Factory of the future
- 1989/94: Designer for the House of World Cultures , Berlin with the exhibitions The Gardens of Islam , Tanzania - Masterpieces of African Sculpture
- 1992: Technical management of Olympia Express 2000 , IDZ Berlin project
- 2000: Design Center NRW The creation of the new , Essen
- 2000: Design in research, positioning and presentation at the University of Wuppertal
- 2001: Participation in the Global Tools exhibition with the theme: Container is the good shape for the 21st century (Vienna, Helsinki)
- 2002: SADEXPO, european ways of design, Louvré, Paris
- 2002: Exhibited in the Pinakothek der Moderne design collection in Munich with a Siemens mobile phone design in 1980 and a vision of a mobile phone and electronic books
- 2010: Form is the norm. The photographic work , Kunstverein Grafschaft Bentheim , Neuenhaus
- 2016: Tõnis Käo: “Design as an Experiment”, retrospective, Red Dot Design Museum , Essen
swell
- Tõnis Käo online at RedDot
- Press archive of the University of Wuppertal
- Exhibition report from Tallinn
- Exhibition report with photos from Kuressaare
literature
- The Wuppertal House. Building and living according to the Mips concept (co-author), Birkhäuser-Verlag 1999, ISBN 978-3-7643-6017-7
- 9 x EU Design (co-author), Av-Edition 2007, ISBN 978-3-89986-081-8
Web links
- Literature by and about Tõnis Käo in the catalog of the German National Library
- Obituary (Estonian Radio, July 8, 2016)
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Käo, Tõnis |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Käo, Tönis |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German industrial designer of Estonian origin |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 3, 1940 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Laimjala , Estonia |
| DATE OF DEATH | 3rd July, 2016 |
| Place of death | Munich , Germany |