The attention for Le Van Bo’s Hartz IV furniture came all of a sudden. Only in spring 2010 had he developed his 24 Euro Chair – often mistakenly called Hartz IV chair – and by now, the construction plans have been requested more than 700 times. More than 400 chairs have been constructed, according to the photographs of the finished furniture, which Van Bo asks for in return for the free instructions. The project makes waves all around the world, even Terre des Hommes Mosambique contacted Van Bo about his do-it-yourself furniture.
Recently, the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur has included the 24 Euro Chair in its collection and presents it as part of the permanent show “Böse Dinge” (Bad Things). And the Kreuzberg 36 Chair has travelled even further: it has been shown in China by the Goethe Institut and the Internationales Designzentrum (IDZ) during the Taiwan Design Expo “German Shades of Green”.
Copyright illustrations Le Van Bo / hartzivmoebel.blogspot.com
24€ Chair
Meanwhile, the trained architect has created more Hartz IV furniture items, such as the Kreuzberg 36 Chair and the SiWo Sofa – the Single-Wohnung-Sofa (Single Appartment Sofa) –, and is experimenting with new ideas. Using “Guerrilla Lounging“, Van Bo tries to make public spaces more habitable, secretly sneaking in sites like underground stations, riversides like the Maybachufer or the city hall of the Berlin district Kreuzberg – a witty play on the German word “heimlich” comes to mind, meaning both “secretly” and “homely”: secretly making public spaces more homely.
The Guerrilla Lounges are accompanied by Van Bo’s first poster: the Hartz IV Rainbow, inspired by Otl Aicher’s colours. It is sold in limited edition (10€) to finance the guerrilla lounges.
It is the ideas of Bauhaus – “Less is more” – and the philosophy of functional forms that impress Van Bo most, and on which he is following up decisively. Thus the 24 Euro Chair recalls Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair (1929) and the Wassily Club Chair by Marcel Breuer (1925). Its furniture workshop impacted the most effective image of Bauhaus to this day. In 1923, the first pieces of furniture were presented at the Bauhaus exhibition, which were designed according to Gropius’ “Guidelines of Bauhaus Production”: each product was to be functional, sustainable, cheap and beautiful. Furthermore, it is interesting that many of these now famous furniture items were created by architects. Marcel Breuer, for example, was trained as an architect, yet taught furniture design at the Bauhaus school from 1925 until 1928. Many of these pieces of furniture are design classics today. No surprise indeed, considering how furniture is among the most important items that influence people’s everyday life most directly. One’s personal habitat is where “form follows function” can be felt immediately.
Inspired by ...
Inspired by Bauhaus, Le Van Bo,who has been mentioned in the short list 2010 by baunetz.de as one of 12 architects, sets out to update these ideals – augmenting them with the idea of “do it yourself”, which appears to be as simple as it is effective in times of high tech mass production. Few role models can be found in this respect: Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld created the Crate chair made of wooden boards in 1938, which was distributed as a construction set, while the Italian designer Enzo Mari developed construction plans for his “autoprogettazione” series including plans for beds, wardrobes, book shelves and chairs. Also the architects of Raumlabor Berlin have developed several pieces of furniture as social sculptures – most recently their “sedia venezia” has successfully accompanied the visitors of the Venice architecture biennial 2010.
More info: hartzivmoebel.blogspot.com
In the following interview, Le Van Bo tells us about his passion for Bauhaus, how it inspired his work on the Hartz IV series and what Eastern and Western design have in common.
(This essay and the interview were published on the occasion of the exhibition “Perspectives on in/outside” at Savvy Contemporary, Berlin (Dec. 2010). The interview below has been abridged.)
Interview
The modernism of the 1920s is particularly of interest to you – why?
Kreuzberg 36 Chair
Everywhere I look there is Bauhaus breathing in the air, especially when I look at the Metro exits, the city planning and in particular typography and furniture design. Helvetica for example, founded by a Swiss typographer Max Miedinger in the 1950s, must have been inspired by a German font: Akzidenz Grotesk (1902), published by German entrepreneur Hermann Berthold in 1902, who also had his factories in Berlin. So the modern type was somehow invented in Berlin, like so many things – for example the “Plattenbau” (social housing by Gropius), the very first industry lamps and the very first corporate identity by Peter Behrens for AEG. And the very first German Volkshochschule (adult education centre) was founded in Berlin, which also can be called a child of the democratic movement. Bauhaus is a way for me to find my German identity.
You are a trained architect. Why architecture?
I studied architecture at the Beuth Hochschule in Berlin and graduated in 2003, but honestly: At that time architecture didn’t interest me at all. As a student I used to make music, I did MCing (Hip Hop) and a lot of Graffiti writing. In a way, this was my very first physical contact with architecture.
Le Van Bo and his Kreutzberg 36 Chairs, Foto: Ute Haufe
I didn’t choose architecture. It chose me, and now, five years after my diploma, I begin to understand the architectural heritage that surrounds us – especially in Berlin with industry designer Peter Behrens, Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe.
Now it seems like I have learned to read a language that I have studied, but never spoken.
SiWo-Sofa
How did you get into the field of designing and how did you come to participating in art exhibitions?
The organiser of a Berlin art fair recently told me that he spots me as an artist. That is interesting, because I don’t see myself as an artist or a designer. I am trained in architecture, which makes me think holistically. I try to make use of the skills I’ve learned with all my different projects. Most of them have a social dimension such as “school talks” which I have initiated in Berlin-Wedding.
((The project School Talks offers career counselling. Together with Kiez-Tank-Stelle, Le Van Bo has been organizing this project in Berlin-Wedding and -Kreuzberg for over three years. Arranged as a talk show, these events give students the chance to talk to interesting people about their professions.))
I am not an artist. I am someone who is really grateful for all the beautiful things I’ve experienced here in Germany, and I just want to give something back: “Geben und nehmen.“ (Give and take.) Armin Paul, the organizer of the Berlin Art Tower Fair, paralleled my project to Joseph Beuys’ “Everybody is an artist”, saying: “Everybody is a carpenter.” This is a very interesting point of view.
How does your background in architecture influence your design work?
Berliner Hocker _ Plans
Obviously Bauhaus inspired my Hartz IV furniture project a lot. Isn’t it a pity that a lot of Bauhaus classic pieces like chairs are unaffordable to the people? Offering construction plans for Bauhaus inspired furniture for free is the idea behind Hartz IV furniture.
“Do it yourself” is getting more and more popular. Why, do you think, is it appealing to so many people to build their own furniture?
People, in the western industrialized world in particular, are getting more and more globalized and digitalized via Skype, Google, Facebook and so on. But this also means that we lose more and more our relationship to our body. When did you write more than two pages with a pen the last time? I think people nowadays long for more handmade experience.
Additionally, in Germany, there is still a lack of answers concerning German identity. By celebrating German design or German movements such as Bauhaus we can refer to a somehow German tradition without getting in conflict with the Nazi past. Sitting on a Bauhaus inspired chair, self-made, gives you a conscious and safe feeling about German identity.
You often mention that you are really grateful for all the beautiful things you’ve experienced here in Germany, which is thus reflected in you works. How much does your Asian origin influence your work as an architect or carpenter?
First of all, I come from a poor workers family, non-academics. This, of course, made me think a lot about quality of life. My parents used to have a wall paper at home showing fake wood, just to pretend a little luxury at home. Poor people often long for a higher status. Concerning life style and interior living, which means, poor people don’t want to see their lack of money and happiness when choosing furniture. Bauhaus objects, which are very reduced but at the same time with high attention to detail, offers a lot of opportunities to design your home with little money – because less
Making of ... 24€ Chair
is more. I think the real luxury is to have time, space and freedom to choose.
Do you by any chance recognise cross-roads of these “western” and “non-western” identities you both encompass in your works or your person?
My father is Chinese and he doesn’t understand the hype with my Hartz IV furniture at all. Of course, I try to find parallels between European and Asian design. And there are more bridges than we think. The Ming throne for example for the kings and emperors of China inspired Danish architect Hans Wegener a lot when he created his masterpiece: The Y Chair. Wegener’s chairs became known worldwide after John F. Kennedy sat in one of them in a TV Show. German architect Bruno Taut was a big fan of Indian sacral architecture. With his books and essays he created a strong exchange between European and Asian – Japanese in particular – design.
Have a look at the German saw – big and based on push stroke – and compare it to a Japanese saw – light and based on pull stroke: you can see the difference between the western and eastern way to saw. This is fascinating. The tools themselves give you answers about cultural characteristics.
Le Van Bo, thanks for the interview!
