REPORTER 025


Left Dieter Rams


Above right, and right Rams set out what he called ‘good design’ principles, which made him the father of modern thinking about what sustainable development means and what it should look like in practice


principles where he introduced the idea of sustainable development. I was hopeful to reach out to Rams and tap into his pioneering mind. But, now in his 90s, even great minds need to draw a line somewhere. ‘Dieter Rams is no longer giving any interviews (of any length),’ said Vitsœ in an email back to me. ‘He feels that he has said everything he needed to say over the course of his long and illustrious career.’ So, whilst I’ve not been able to speak to Rams, it’s a pivotal moment and I’ve delved through the achieves at Vitsœ to revisit some of his great achievements. Deep at the heart of Rams’s philosophy was commitment to responsible design. In his 1976


speech ‘Design by Vitsœ’, which took place in New York, he highlighted an ‘increasing and irreversible shortage of natural resources’. He wanted people – designers, architects and consumers – to take on more responsibility to tackle excessive waste, which he associated with bad design. Rams said: ‘I imagine our current situation will cause future generations to shudder at the thoughtlessness in the way in which we today fill our homes, our cities and our landscape with a chaos of assorted junk.’ It was pioneering talk. And whereas sustainable design and delivery is a subject on the tip of all our tongues today – shaping the industry and prompting massive investment –


for Rams and Vitsœ founder, Niels Vitsœ, sustainable design wasn’t necessarily something so outward. ‘[It was] common sense,’ explains Vitsœ’s managing director, Mark Adams. ‘Neither Dieter Rams or Niels Vitsœ ever talked about sustainable design. They were designing, making and selling down-to-earth products that were intended to last as long as possible by sticking single- mindedly to a system-thinking ethos that allowed customers to live with timeless products that adapted constantly to their changing lives. Decades later many call this sustainable thinking. Vitsœ and Rams call it common sense.’


ALL IMAGES: VITSOE


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