Peter Behrens, born on April 14th, 1868 was
regarded as one of the most influential 20th century German
designers as well as being one of the architectural reform leaders entering the
new century. He designed factories in brick, steel and glass. He was the
designer of AEG’s turbine factory created in 1910. Before moving to industrial
art, he was an illustrator, painter and book binder. In 1907, as the artistic consultant of AEG,
he designed the entirety of the company’s identity, which included logotype,
product design, publicity and several other aspects. With said design works
under his belt, he was considered the first industrial designer in history. He
created the concept of “corporate identity”. He also created a few typefaces,
including Behrens-Schrift, Behrens-Antiqua and Behrens Medieval.
Peter and ten other people created the German Werkbund, the
German Association of Craftsmen; a German association that was home to several
artists, designers, industrialists and architects. One function of the Werkbund
was to serves as an important event in the maturation of modern architecture
and industrial design, specifically in the later creation of the Bauhaus school
of design. Werkbund was not so much an artistic movement, but more so an
attempt at putting Germany on a competitive level with England and the United
States while integrating traditional crafts with industrial mass-production
techniques.
Peter Behrens was a very talented multifaceted artist. As
stated before, he worked in several different mediums and styles as a painter,
illustrator and book-binder and wood-blocker artist. Since he later specialized
as an “industrial artist” a majority of his works thereafter were primarily
some form of household appliance or item, in which many were made in some form
of metal that were mass produced.
The majority of his
metal works include tea kettles, lamps, candlestick holders, clocks, and fans
to name a few. His metal fans consist of a thin wire frame exterior along with
four blades inside the fan itself. The wire frames on the outside of the fans
he has created vary in form. Half of the frames consist of wavy thin strands of
metal while the other half have uniform and non-distorted strands of metal.
Similar strokes can be seen in his illustrations as hair as shown in “The Kiss”
in 1898 as well as his textile designs or ornamental patterns. He also created
several objects in stone, primarily containers of some sort. He has created
vessels from syrup jars to urns to spice jars, decorated with some type of
floral design.
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