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IN GERMAN:

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Dieter started designing
in the early '50s.

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It was after the war,
after enormous upheaval.

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It was also a time of
great precariousness,

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in a way, and a great change
and people wanting change,

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and change happening,
technologically.

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I'm trying to think,
why is he so interesting

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for people now? And I think,

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maybe, maybe there is also a kind of
precarious phase that we're going

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through, also great
technological change,

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also great social change.

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Dieter met Ingeborg
when he was at Braun.

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She was a photographer working
in the photography department.

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They're a very private couple.

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They're not out in the limelight,
they're not out together

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at the big red-carpet dos.

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They've been together
for over 50 years,

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the two of them.

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It's quite lovely, actually.

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He keeps himself in
a very tranquil bubble.

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I mean, he's lived in the same house
for almost 50 years.

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You know, he hasn't moved.

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You know, he goes, he gives talks,
he gives lectures,

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he travels, there are
shows about his work,

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he talks to people,
he's very generous with his time.

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But he doesn't have hobbies.

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His work is his life,
his life's his work,

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and he's not really
interested in anything else.

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There was huge change going on.

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It was about rebuilding Germany,
it was about rethinking who people

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were, what they were,
how they were living.

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And a lot of that
thinking came from Ulm.

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Ulm School was set up after
the war in the '50s,

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the follower from Bauhaus,
even more kind of restrained

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and puritan, in a way.

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Dieter picked it up very quickly
and then made it his own

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very quickly as well.

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The SK4 was a turning point
in design, and it was especially

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a turning point for Braun.

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Radio was a kind of
a furniture in this time,

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and Braun designers wanted to go
away from the furniture.

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The first SK4 sketches
were made by Dieter,

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with a wooden case with a record
player on the top and with a radio

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on the top, but this
really didn't work.

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So they asked Gugelot
if he can find a solution.

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He was one of the very important
designers in the mid-century,

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and Gugelot very quickly found
the solution to make it with metal,

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fully in metal, with these wooden
parts on the left and right side.

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And the last problem
was how to cover it on the top,

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so first they make a metal one,
but this didn't work.

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OPERATIC MUSIC PLAYS

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Because it was a clear lid,

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that allowed them to put
all of the controls on top.

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Whereas previously
they had been on the front,

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now they could be on top and seen
through the lid for the first time.

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INTERVIEWER: Were there any women
in the design department?

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IN JAPANESE:

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Actually, I...

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..I have seen this product photo,

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but I have never touched.

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So, very good.

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There's a reason that Erwin Braun
pushed Rams forward and put him

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in the limelight for his designs.

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He looks the part,
he's super-photogenic.

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But there's this fixation
that the press tends to do of saying

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that all responsible, utilitarian,
reduced design is Dieter Rams.

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And it's not,
and he keeps saying it.

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A lot of his designs are co-designs,
a lot of stuff that's attributed

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to him was actually done by other
members of his team,

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but people just want to put one
face, one name to this whole

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aesthetic and this whole
design position.

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When you talk to anybody who grew
up between the '50s and,

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say, the '90s, just about anyone
will remember having a Braun product

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of some kind.

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You know, when I first
encountered Rams's work,

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I found it very difficult,
very masculine.

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It was quite clinical, in a way.

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It was not until I went
to visit him at his house,

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and there I saw him living
with all his products,

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I began to really appreciate
and really understand the skill

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involved with them, and the quality.

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There was this idea that domestic
appliances are there to serve

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the user, therefore it has to stay
in the background, it mustn't...

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..it mustn't push to the front,
it mustn't insist on its own

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presence, it just had to do its
job and be out of the way.

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And that was absolutely fundamental
to the ten principles.

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In the 1950s, Rams was at a trade
exhibition and is introduced

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by Otto Zapf, a furniture maker,

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to this Danish guy called Niels
Vitsoe.

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Over the next couple of years,
they developed the ideas so that,

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in 1959, Vitsoe was formed.

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As they're developing these ideas,
Rams realises that he's moonlighting

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on the side from his full-time
employment at Braun,

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that he has to go to Irwin and say,
"Well, can I continue doing

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"this work in any formal way?"

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But I like this!

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And children like it too!

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Yes!

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And I like the feeling,
it's really good.

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It's very compliment of all of you.

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APPLAUSE

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We probably have one or two
of the original Rams back catalogue

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that we would like to put
back into production.

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The one that, personally,
I have always felt we should bring

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back from the early '60s
was this chair called 601.

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A very simple outline profile
with a T-shape aluminium leg.

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I've observed the way in which its
form and profile and method of

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upholstery have found their way into
some other products on the market.

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But I think it was probably 40 or 50
years ahead of its time.

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This is the one where...
OK.

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..we've looked at increasing
the height slightly.

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I don't like increasing the height.

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I would prefer the arm length.

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If you get some...

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..steel part, screwed together with
the leg... Yeah?

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Dieter, should we offer
this chair in fabric or...

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No! Only in leather? No! In leather.

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Only in leather.
Same procedure as with 620.

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Same procedure as every year.

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The things should speak
the same language.

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That makes sense.

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It was always what I'm trying
with the...

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..with the Braun products.

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Even a kitchen machine is different
from a radio or from a hi-fi,

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but altogether it makes one family.

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And same should happen to...
It's people...

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"Oh, that comes from
Vitsoe, no question."

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Dieter's a man with incredible
sensitivity and understanding

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and appreciation
of the natural world.

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In the 1970s, he was one
of the early voices saying,

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"What are we doing to our planet?"

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And he woke up sort
of mid-'70s and went,

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"Whoa, am I part of the problem?

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"I'm making all of this
injection-moulded plastic stuff."

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And that was where the ten
principles for good design
came from,

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because he was
questioning himself,

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saying, "Well, actually,
are we producing something

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"that is adding value to the planet,
that is not just depleting

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"the resources?"

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The challenge is how we can take
Dieter's very strongly held belief

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forward in another generation.

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We have now been spending many years
designing a new building for Vitsoe,

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a new headquarters
and production building,

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but equally will be
a residential building.

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That building, and so many
of the ideas and techniques

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that we're deploying in it,
are completely formed

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by his principles for good design.

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We're seeing it as being
a living experiment.

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So, Dieter, there you have...

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Yeah.

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..you have our little building.

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A lot of space. A lot of space.

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Yeah.

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And so you're walking now
into the main assembly area.

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We will be making
the chairs right here.

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So we have five bedrooms,
because we have people come for six

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or eight weeks from Los Angeles
or New York or Munich.

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I know. Yes.

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When they are newly recruited,
then they can come and stay here,

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live in the building.

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Got the good windows,
so lovely, natural light.

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We've designed it that we should
have no lights on

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during daylight hours.

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This is beech.

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And then this is birch.

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Yeah, yeah.

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In the '50s and '60s,
there was this drive for modern

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and new, but then came the '70s.
Rams's type of design was rejected

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by a lot of designers,
they were looking for colours

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and shapes and swells
and statements.

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It's only later, as designers got
really sick of that and said,

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"There must be something
more to this," they realised

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that the directions we were going
had become very decadent.

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Then this interest in Rams
began to grow again.

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And I think it also had a lot to do
with Mark Adams and Vitsoe,

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and going to this effort
to spread the message.

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We do not need all of this
space immediately.

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Ground space?

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Yeah.

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Absolutely, oh, yeah. Yeah.

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Only.

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Only. That's
the number one on the list.

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And if we can't achieve
it, we won't do it.

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I think the world is going where
you just try to create one rigid

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culture in a space,
and I think we, working at Vitsoe,

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would benefit from other people
around, as other people

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would from us, but they have
to be the right people.

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We'll go and get some,

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we'll go and get
some food and drink.

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We'll just go and walk over...

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Can we leave... I normally
don't wear a hat!

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No, I understand!

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Still now I have little problems.

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Is it too tight?

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I have the feeling I have to...

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Is it too much pressure? Yeah.
No.

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But there's an English word of,
"Es juckt mir im Kopf."

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Ja, he needs to scratch his head.

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Oh, he needs to scratch
his head, OK, yeah.

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Because he's unused...

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Now you can scratch the hair.

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Much better!

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I need fresh air
on the... on my hair!

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He is very clear about
the people he likes.

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He is also from that generation
where designers dared to say,

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"This, to my opinion,
is bad design."

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Today you will more often hear,
"This is interesting," you know?

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And you never know
what does that mean,

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"interesting" - yes, of course.

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I think the whole
world is interesting.

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But I'm going to be asking myself
whether we're not entering a time

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where this question,
"Is it good or not good?"

213
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is maybe becoming
more important again.

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We just can't afford
to be so indifferent.

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What Dieter Rams once told us
when we prepared the exhibition

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was that he wants to design not
only a single object,

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but he wants to design
a whole environment,

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or also, philosophically,
a world in which people

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could live in.

220
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Rams has always been Rams.
You can recognise it,

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it has this look of
a certain colour palette,

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certain formal approach.

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That is what makes his design
work so convincing,

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today especially,
when things change so quickly.

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And I think Rams shows that design
can have a very strong orientation,

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and it's not that there is no
evolution, he is still working

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on things, but he's
working on details.

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But he's not questioning
his general approach.

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Is it not nice? Mm-hm.

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OK, you can say it's a hobby,

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but I like this hobby!

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APPLAUSE

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I think Dieter is surprisingly
pessimistic about the future,

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but then I think he's also maybe not
so aware of how much his principles

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have influenced people.

236
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Because Rams's design
is not just design,

237
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it's a whole attitude.

238
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And it incorporates everything
about how you live.

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It's about getting rid of excess,
visual clutter, and just living

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with what you need.

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"Less but better" is
quite an amazing legacy.

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What better thing could
you want than that?