Peter Behrens – 1868 / 2018

Peter Behrens (1868-1940) was one of the most innovative architects and designers of the early 20th century. He is widely recognized as a pioneer of modern industrial design. To this day, his buildings and designs inform our everyday lives. As head designer at AEG, Behrens created the company’s turbine hall in Berlin-Moabit. This construction ranks among the most famous buildings of industrial architecture and is known around the world. But Behrens also developed AEG’s logo and corporate design – long before this concept actually existed. He thus established a consistent and standardized visual appearance for all products and marketing materials, ranging from the company’s letterhead to its advertisements. In addition, he was an accomplished typographer and designed trademarks which are still extant, not the least of which is the iconic font for the inscription ‘Dem deutschen Volke’ (To the German People) atop the Reichstag building in Berlin.

Themes included within the set: Romana Rebbelmund – Glassware by Peter Behrens; Nuray Amrhein – The Schiedmayer Grand Piano by Peter Behrens; Isabel Brass – Hollowware and Cutlery by Peter Behrens; Romana Rebbelmund and Hans-Martin Zimmermann – Peter Behrens’ Shift Towards «New Objectivity»; Tobias Wüstenbecker – Peter Behrens’ Design for the Deutz Suspension Bridge in Cologne; Thorsten Scheer – Peter Behrens as Author; Carsten Krohn – The AEG Turbine Factory in Berlin; Holger Klein-Wiele – Architecture of the 1920s; Magdalena Holzhey – The Correspondence Between Peter Behrens and Friedrich Deneken 1898 to 1912; Fabian Peters – Friedrich Deneken as Mentor for Peter Behrens; Sabine Röder – Peter Behrens as Designer for AEG; Thorsten Scheer – Behrens’ Design Language Between Eclecticism and Modernism.