| For Hans Theo Baumann on his 80th birthday
Hans Theo Baumann is one of the grand old men of German design. His creations have gone down in history. His approach is holistic, his range no less so.
It was immediately following World War II that in the Lambertz glassworks in Waldsassen Hans Theo Baumann produced the glass creations we refer to nowadays as studio glass. At the time, however, the term did not exist and unfortunately very few are familiar with this early output. The same is definitely true of his later glass creations for Süssmuth, Gral, Rheinkristall and Daum because, as already mentioned, they have gone down in history, as have his porcelain designs for Rosenthal, Schönwald, Thomas, Arzberg, Tirschenreuth and the Staatliche Porzellanmanufaktur in Berlin.
His futuristic chair design for Vitra – which he also came up with shortly after the War – has likewise to a large extent remained unknown, production at the time being anything but easy. He did, however, stimulate a whole series of icons of German furniture design.
Long before the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was built in Berlin, between 1951 and 1953 he developed the colored, mosaic-like glass element for the Church of St. Matthew in Pforzheim on behalf of Egon Eiermann, the star architect of the young, democratically minded West Germany. And the glass was to be become a phenotype of its era.
In 1959, together with Karl Dittert, Herbert Hirche, Günter Kupetz, Peter Raake, Rainer Schütze, Hans Erich Slany, and Otto Votteler he founded the Association of German Industrial Designers and, while nowadays we talk of globalization, in the early 1980s he was already collaborating with porcelain and glass manufacturers in Japan.
In short: for almost 50 years Hans Theo Baumann's works and ideas have been influencing German design. My true respect and congratulations on this achievement!
Prof. Dr. Florian Hufnagl
The Neue Sammlung, State Museum of Applied Arts and Design
Design in the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
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