Dieter Rams at the Design Museum
Designery types have been flocking in larger numbers than usual to the Design Museum in London, which, until the 9th of March, has been turned into a shrine to Dieter Rams, the famed Braun designer. We joined them a week ago on a wet, windy January afternoon.
The exhibition showcases his minimalist turntables, radios, alarm clocks and shelving systems in all their beauty, utility and, arguably above all, honesty. Rams and Braun took pride in products which didn’t lie to customers by pretending to be something more than the purpose they were designed for. No showy excess just to push a few more units.
Now we know who Apple rips off.
Yet the exhibition brings with it a hint of melancholy, stemming firstly from the inability to interact with objects that clearly cry out to be used. Rams-designed door handles, adhered to fake doors that lead to nowhere, next to a sign reading “DO NOT TOUCH”.
Secondly, decades of technological gallop means that these “timeless” objects are, with few exceptions, obsolete relics. They are to be looked up to and emulated but as years go by their impact will lessen simply because we won’t be able to tell what this or that button was for. Like instruments we don’t know how to play, they’ll change from intuitive to mysterious.
Shame I missed this exhibition. I used to have a Dieter designed reel-to-reel tape deck and still own a Braun turntable from the same period. Built like a tank and in use occasionally to transfer vinyl to MP3 which I then listen to on my iPod (noting the irony of Jonathan Ive’s shameless and unacknowledged ‘homage’ to the genius that was Rams.)