Wilhelm Wagenfeld

Wilhelm Wagenfeld was undeniably one of the pioneers of German industrial design. Like no other representative of his craft, he devoted his skill and gift for invention to radically improving industrial mass production and to "redefining the weight of things." Many of his clear, functional designs went on to become classics of timeless beauty--like the Bauhaus lamp, a standard to this day, which Wagenfeld created as a twenty-four-year-old student at the Weimar Bauhaus; or the stackable Kubus storage vessels he designed in 1938; or the salt and pepper shakers from 1952 that are still widely bought and admired today for their functionality and their contribution to postwar German culture. William Wagenfeld (1900-1990) marks the centennial of the designer's birth, presenting his oeuvre in the context of important contemporaries for the first time. The contributing authors shed light upon the designer's output and its perception today from a wide range of perspectives, affirming the ever-growing relevance of Wagenfeld's designs and ideas.