Monde Comme Projet

Description

Since his accidental death in 1991, the German graphic designer Otl Aicher has been in the news ever since. A few months before his death, he compiled his most important writings in a book entitled die welt als entwurf (1992) - the world as a project. The designera, famous for having designed the identity of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, the Lufthansa identity and the Rotis typeface, recalls his definition of modernism and, in so doing, makes clear his hatred of the postmodern world in which "museums become slices of pie and coffee machines become fluted columns". Through the eighteen essays gathered here, Aicher returns to his pedagogical experiences and distinguishes with precision the Ulm School from the Bauhaus. He salutes the work of famous architects (Foster and Piano in particular) and fellow designers, "moralists" in the good sense of the term, such as Hans Gugelot and Charles Eames. Finally, he outlines the contours of a creative practice, graphic design, whose ethics defy the established disciplinary divisions. He thus asserts himself as a humanist convinced that design, approached and practiced as a project, can change our society.