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A tribute
For the 90th anniversary of the Bauhaus, the city of Berlin selected a
group of young German designers and asked them to come up with
a design which interpretated and celebrated the Bahaus movement.
The city of Berlin provided the designers with a small studio, and
then it was just a matter of getting started. Usually, the interpretations
become manifestations of the bent steel tube that made its way into
the furniture industry with the help of the Bauhaus movement.
This was after they discovered how the German aerospace industry
figured out how to shape sand-filled steel tubes against precise
matrices to get perfectly bent tubes. The cold hard material now
became soft and pliable through its bends. The designers
Osko+Deichmann went a different way with their interpretation,
and fantasized about how steel tube furniture would have
looked if the Bauhaus group had instead introduced steel tubes
on furniture at the time when changing direction on tubular steel was
done by making a “kink”, which is a strong and precise guidance
on the pipe, so that it can be bent easily. Horribly ugly in everyone’s
eyes. But with the help of Osko+Deichmann, the ugly has instead
become a decoration.
We received an invitation by post to an exhibition in a Milan church
in the spring of 2008 - on the front was a chair made of kinked steel
tube. Still holding it in my hand, I called Osko+Deichmann in Berlin
and said: - “We want to do this!” -“It’s not possible to do it,” was
their answer – “There is no industry and no machines that can make
kinks.” Therefore, the entire Straw, Superstraw and Superkink family
has become a craft and a tribute to the Bauhaus.
At the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, they have chosen
to have Straw in their outdoor café.
