smow Blog Design Calendar: January 22nd 1898 – Happy Birthday Ferdinand Kramer!

„"Through its wide reaching resonance Pessac represents an important step progress. In contrast to the many theorising exhibitions, here, with great boldness, a new fruitful thought has been put into practice. Le Corbusier has undertaken pioneering work in Pessac" "Architektur des Auslands. Le Corbusiers Siedlung Frugès in Pessac" in Stein, Holz, Eisen, Heft 1 1927 ”

„"The main objection raised against the transfer of such factory methods to other "household goods" was an aesthetic, or rather, a personal one. Everyone should express their own individuality at home, the stamp of his personal identity. But we may well ask whether the furniture of our fathers was individual in this sense. What did it express? Repetitions of borrowed historical styles. Was that the individuality of the last generation or that of your ancestors?" "Individuelle oder typisierte Möbel?" in Das neue Frankfurt, Heft 1, 1928 ”

„"The problem of systematisation is the standardisation of the form, or of the processing elements. The individual production and processing of single objects is abandoned in favour of a factory, which has as its goal the serial production of precision machined models. This process, which today is particularly important, is not only historically interesting: it alone explains the immense sales of the Thonet industry, and provides a very interesting reference for the further development of rationalisation in the furniture industry. The Thonet example is all the more illustrative, as it proves that with the concentarted development of factory production formal problems are also solved, and that in a manner which permits the highest aesthetic standards." "Die Thonetindustrie" in Die Form Heft 8, 1929 (Whereby one must remember Kramer was cooperating with Thonet at that period......) ”

„"The advantages of the housing block are obvious. They allow for the realisation of the apartment house, complete with a centralised kitchen. ..... The centralisation of services, catering, laundry, child care can only bring advantages compared to uneconomic single family households .... Collective living forces a mutual cooperation and discipline." "Die Wohnung für das Existenzminumum" in Die Form, Heft 24, 1929 ”

„"The production of all kinds of products is a combination of purpose, material, and process. From these three factors the form results, which in its basics is not invented but rather a necessary consequence. Despite this, the form is regularly conceived purely externally without any internal connection with the process of formation. Thus represents not new creation, but plagiarism! A danger, which is always very close, where a new style is considered solely in terms of external form." "Die Mitarbeit des Künstlers am Industriellen Erzeugnis" in Die Form, Heft 8, 1930 ”

„"The visitor observes with astonishment that in spite of the overflowing of the market with ever more artesian and factory "novelties" which seek to outdo one another, a lot of practical, self-evident and beautiful objects of use are available. It would be desirable to have such a overview in every city, and the applied art museums would undertake a thankful task if they made such a selection permanently available to the public for information." "Wohnbedarf" in Frankfurter Zeitung 21.05.1932, from Kramer's review of the exhibition "Wohnbedarf" which had opened in Stuttgart on May 13th. Interestingly, with the "Good Design" exhibitions of the 1940s and 1950s the Museum of Modern Art. MoMA, in New York did just what Kramer suggested. And in doing so helped establish the legend of American Mid-century Modern. ”

„"Through a heavy, far too narrow, ornamented lattice door, one reached the vestibule... The outer entrance was overloaded with columns and bad sculptures from the age of the "mauvais goût". The inside of the hall had eight sandstone columns which served no static function and were a major obstacle for movement" "Umbau der Universität" in Bauen und Wohnen, Heft 9, 1954 and where Ferdinand Kramer describes the Neo-classic main entrance to Frankfurt University - before he replaced it with a glass and steel construction. An act which famously saw him denounced as a "Barbarian" ”

„"The burnt-red paint of the heat vents on the roof is not art, but nature - industrial nature. For the vinidur, from which they are fabricated, is this colour. An aesthetic impression is as such there - for some, of course, it is negative. But be assured: it would have been easy for such a functional building to become ugliness itself, like some older factories. That we wanted to make this building beautiful, that you can believe. Only for us, beauty must never embarrass the function, act as if it had nothing to do with it." "Rede eine Baumeisters vor Naturwissenschaftlern" reprinted in Bauwelt Heft 32, 1958 ”

„"Yes, but where is the cosiness? I understood in what was being said. Between the tavern "Zum Schlagbaum" and the "Mexicana-Bar", this house is so strange. Old and new cosiness compete here for the attentions of the young people. The longing for the cave, as so perfectly represented by the old Fraternity Houses in Heidelberg, demands broken, unclear colour, occasional angles, here and there a piece of antiquated furniture or wallpaper, on which the impoverished contemporary can slouch. I didn't want to offer all that. The walls are ruthlessly white, the concrete pillars and beams are not even smoothed, with holes like the bark of a tree" "Wohnen im Stundentenheim" in Bauwelt Heft 17 1959 - reprint of speech by Kramer on the occassion of the Einweihung des Studentenheimes Bockenheimer Warte ”

„"I hope to have shown with this report that the manifold interpretations of the architecture of the 1920s, which with the term Functionalism make it responsible for today's mistakes, are not true.The work of those times was by no means devoid of psychological and formal aesthetic aspects - they arose in a time of great need - without nostalgia, but full of hope for the future" "Ferdinand Kramer. 50 Jahre Architektur - Bericht aus meinem Leben" in Der Neue Egoist, 2, 1976 ”

„"However, the situation today seems to me to be grotesque. In the Federal Republic, which in relation to the Weimar Republic is exceptionally rich, there is once again a need for housing, and there are dramatic global political and economic tensions in terms of energy and ecology crises, famine in the Third World.Yet, unaffected by these alarming problems, "post-modernism" attempts to dominate the current architecture.Where is our contemporary, determined youth, the rousing avant-garde, which realises a new orientation, the revaluation of values necessary for our survival, in its architecture" "Diese überraschende Ehrung", unpublished speech by Ferdinand Kramer on occasion of the award of an Honorary Doctorate from Stuttgart Univeristy, 17th July 1981 - Printed in Hans M. Wingler, Ferdinand Kramer, Architektur und Design: Ausstellung im Bauhaus-Archiv, Museum für Gestaltung, Berlin, 9. Dez. 1982 - 23. Jan. 1983 ”

„ "At no other moment in my turbulent life would this award from my former technical college have pleased me more than now, at my age and - in today's situation of the "New Inobjectivity", post-modernism and perverted functionalism" "Zu diesem Zeitpunkt" in Bauwelt Heft 14, 1982 - reprint of speech held by Ferdinad Kramer on occasion of the award of an Honorary Doctorate from the TU Munich ”