6th International Marianne Brandt Competition
Submission start on 1 October
The submission phase of the 6th International Marianne Brandt Competition starts on the 122nd anniversary of Marianne Brandt's birth on 1 October 2015.
The search for poetry in the functional will continue in the 15th year of the competition. Under the theme "Material Effects", the organiser Villa Arte e.V. wants to keep Marianne Brandt's design alive and question it anew.
The competition is sponsored by the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony and the City of Chemnitz and is endowed with 15,000 euros. The patron is Lord Mayor Barbara Ludwig. The application period runs until 31 May 2016 and the award ceremony will take place on 1 October 2016.
Competition and jury
Marianne Brandt's designs from the metal workshop have become icons of modern design as sensitive, geometrically logical, functional material compositions. They are part of the historic Bauhaus idea of using the power of convincing design to mould the new human being.
The power of industrial design not only influences us, but also the material conditions and resources of the world. The competition is therefore interested in material-sensitive, sensual product and image inventions, as well as in projects and experimental arrangements that deal with the origin, properties and conditions of materials and possibly create new perspectives on behaviour and action.
With Prof. Ahn Sang-soo, Prof. Barbara Schmidt and Prof. Harald Welzer, a high-calibre international jury has once again been recruited for the 14th year of the competition.
Born in 1952, Ahn Sang-soo is a graphic designer and typographer from South Korea. He simplified the Korean alphabet and was thus able to bring it into the digital age. This makes him a pioneer of modernity who continuously explores formal possibilities and finds the free, essential, functional and beautiful not only for typography through experimentation.
Barbara Schmidt's career shows strong parallels to Brandt's career. Her basic training at Burg Giebichenstein in Halle is not unrelated to Marianne Brandt's training. After completing her studies, Barbara Schmidt played a leading role in the reorganisation of the Kahla/ Thüringen Porzellan company and made it a market leader in the industry with her designs. Marianne Brandt was given the same task for the product range of Ruppelwerke in Gotha. Both also teach and have taught at the Berlin Weissensee School of Art. Barbara Schmidt is a professor of design and experimentation there.
Prof Dr Harald Welzer is a sociologist and social psychologist, co-founder and director of "Futur Zwei. Stiftung Zukunftsfähigkeit", permanent visiting professor of social psychology at the University of Sankt Gallen, member of the German government's Council for Sustainable Development and the Future Council of the state of Schleswig-Holstein and, last but not least, professor of transformation design and mediation at the University of Flensburg.
If the Bauhaus once initiated and helped to shape a transformation process into a modern world with its designs, in the face of climate change and dwindling resources, he is concerned with shaping the process of change itself and thus paving the way for a sustainable modern age.
The nominated entries as a whole will reflect a contemporary use of materials and the young generation's understanding of the world. Because "we know more than we can put into words", Linda Pense, curator of the competition, is convinced.
Further information can be found at www.mbw6.de