Max Bill
Encyclopedia
Max Bill was a Swiss
architect
, artist
, painter
, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer
.
Bill was born in Winterthur
. After an apprenticeship
as a silversmith
during 1924-1927, Bill took up studies at the Bauhaus
in Dessau
under many teachers including Wassily Kandinsky
, Paul Klee
and Oskar Schlemmer
from 1927 to 1929, after which he moved to Zurich.
From 1937 onwards he was a prime mover behind the Allianz
group of Swiss artists and in 1944, he became a professor at the school of arts in Zurich
.
In 1953, Max Bill, Inge Aicher-Scholl
and Otl Aicher founded the Ulm School of Design
(German: Hochschule für Gestaltung - HfG Ulm) in Ulm
, Germany
, a design school initially created in the tradition of the Bauhaus
and which later developed a new design education approach integrating art and science. The school is notable for its inclusion of semiotics
as a field of study. The school closed in 1968. Faculty and students included: Tomás Maldonado
, Otl Aicher, Joseph Albers, Johannes Itten
, John Lottes, Walter Zeischegg, and Peter Seitz
.
Bill was the single most decisive influence on Swiss graphic design beginning in the 1950s with his theoretical writing and progressive work. His connection to the days of the Modern Movement gave him special authority. As an industrial designer, his work is characterized by a clarity of design and precise proportions. Examples are the elegant clocks and watches designed for Junghans
, a long-term client. Among Bill's most notable product designs is the "Ulmer Hocker" of 1954, a stool that can also be used as a shelf element or a side table. Although the stool was a creation of Bill and Ulm school designer Hans Gugelot, it is often called "Bill Hocker" because the first sketch on a cocktail napkin was Bill's work.
As a designer and artist, Bill sought to create forms which visually represent the New Physics mathematics of the early 20th century. He sought to create objects so that the new science of form could be experienced by the senses. A prime example is his sculptural work using the Möbius strip
form.
From 1967 to 1971 he became a member of the Swiss National Council
, then became a professor at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg
and chair of Environmental Design from 1967 to 1974.
In 1973 he became an associate member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Science, Literature and Fine Art in Brussels
. In 1976 he became a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts
.
A large granite
sculpture by Max Bill was installed adjacent to the Bahnhofstrasse, Zürich
in 1983. As is often the case with modern art in public places, the installation generated some controversy.
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
, artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
.
Bill was born in Winterthur
Winterthur
Winterthur is a city in the canton of Zurich in northern Switzerland. It has the country's sixth largest population with an estimate of more than 100,000 people. In the local dialect and by its inhabitants, it is usually abbreviated to Winti...
. After an apprenticeship
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
as a silversmith
Silversmith
A silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...
during 1924-1927, Bill took up studies at the Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
in Dessau
Dessau
Dessau is a town in Germany on the junction of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it is part of the merged town Dessau-Roßlau. Population of Dessau proper: 77,973 .-Geography:...
under many teachers including Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
, Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
and Oskar Schlemmer
Oskar Schlemmer
Oskar Schlemmer was a German painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school. In 1923 he was hired as Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, after working some time at the workshop of sculpture...
from 1927 to 1929, after which he moved to Zurich.
From 1937 onwards he was a prime mover behind the Allianz
Allianz (arts)
Allianz was a group of Swiss artists which formed in 1937.The Allianz group advocated the concrete art theories of Max Bill with more emphasis on color than their Constructivist counterparts....
group of Swiss artists and in 1944, he became a professor at the school of arts in Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
.
In 1953, Max Bill, Inge Aicher-Scholl
Inge Scholl
Inge Scholl was the daughter of Robert Scholl, the mayor of Forchtenberg, and was the sister of Hans and Sophie Scholl, who studied at the University of Munich in 1942, and were core members of the White Rose student resistance movement in Nazi Germany.The White Rose was a student group that...
and Otl Aicher founded the Ulm School of Design
Ulm School of Design
The Ulm School of Design was a college of design based in Ulm, Germany.Founded in 1953 by Inge Aicher-Scholl, Otl Aicher and Max Bill, the latter being first Rector of the school and a former student at the Bauhaus. The HfG quickly gained international recognition and is now viewed as being second...
(German: Hochschule für Gestaltung - HfG Ulm) in Ulm
Ulm
Ulm is a city in the federal German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the River Danube. The city, whose population is estimated at 120,000 , forms an urban district of its own and is the administrative seat of the Alb-Donau district. Ulm, founded around 850, is rich in history and...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, a design school initially created in the tradition of the Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
and which later developed a new design education approach integrating art and science. The school is notable for its inclusion of semiotics
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
as a field of study. The school closed in 1968. Faculty and students included: Tomás Maldonado
Tomás Maldonado
Tomás Maldonado . Argentine painter, designer and thinker, is considered one of the main theorists of the legendary ”Ulm Model”, a design philosophy developed during his tenure at the Ulm School of Design in Germany.-Biography:Born in the Argentine city of Buenos Aires, his artistic formation...
, Otl Aicher, Joseph Albers, Johannes Itten
Johannes Itten
Johannes Itten was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus school...
, John Lottes, Walter Zeischegg, and Peter Seitz
Peter Seitz
Peter Seitz is a graphic designer, author, teacher and business owner who served as the first Design Director at The Walker Art Center , and helped establish the graphic design program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.-Early career and education:Born in Schwabmünchen, Germany in 1931,...
.
Bill was the single most decisive influence on Swiss graphic design beginning in the 1950s with his theoretical writing and progressive work. His connection to the days of the Modern Movement gave him special authority. As an industrial designer, his work is characterized by a clarity of design and precise proportions. Examples are the elegant clocks and watches designed for Junghans
Junghans
Junghans Uhren GmbH is Germany's largest watch and clock manufacturer.The company is located in Schramberg, Baden-Württemberg. On 15 April 1861 Erhard Junghans created the company „Junghans und Tobler“ together with his brother-in-law Jakob Zeller-Tobler in Schramberg .The company began to produce...
, a long-term client. Among Bill's most notable product designs is the "Ulmer Hocker" of 1954, a stool that can also be used as a shelf element or a side table. Although the stool was a creation of Bill and Ulm school designer Hans Gugelot, it is often called "Bill Hocker" because the first sketch on a cocktail napkin was Bill's work.
As a designer and artist, Bill sought to create forms which visually represent the New Physics mathematics of the early 20th century. He sought to create objects so that the new science of form could be experienced by the senses. A prime example is his sculptural work using the Möbius strip
Möbius strip
The Möbius strip or Möbius band is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. The Möbius strip has the mathematical property of being non-orientable. It can be realized as a ruled surface...
form.
From 1967 to 1971 he became a member of the Swiss National Council
National Council of Switzerland
The National Council of Switzerland is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland. With 200 seats, it is the larger of the two houses....
, then became a professor at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
and chair of Environmental Design from 1967 to 1974.
In 1973 he became an associate member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Science, Literature and Fine Art in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
. In 1976 he became a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts
Akademie der Künste
The Akademie der Künste, Berlin is an arts institution in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1696 by Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg as the Prussian Academy of Arts, an academic institution where members could meet and discuss and share ideas...
.
A large granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
sculpture by Max Bill was installed adjacent to the Bahnhofstrasse, Zürich
Bahnhofstrasse, Zürich
Bahnhofstrasse is Zurich's main downtown street and one of the world's most expensive and exclusive shopping avenues. In 2010 a study has named the Bahnhofstrasse the third most expensive street for retail property in Europe, and the fifth most expensive worldwide. It came into exsistence when the...
in 1983. As is often the case with modern art in public places, the installation generated some controversy.
External links
- "Max Bill - The Master's Vision", a film about Max Bill by Erich Schmid
- Lorenzelli Arte: Max Bill Biography
- Works in Stuttgart museum
- max bill georges vantongerloo stiftung
- Max Bill: Exhibition in MARTa Herford Museum (Germany)