Author: Darko Vlahović
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If ever there was an industrial designer whose work was inextricably linked with nature, it was hands down Luigi Colani. As one of the most influential innovators in the field of design in the 20th century, Colani designed thousands of items – from smaller objects for everyday use such as ballpoint pens, lighting fixtures, and cameras, through furniture, musical instruments, and cars, all the way to grandiose concepts of spacecraft and futuristic aircraft that have not been made yet.
All these objects and concepts scream Colani: his distinctive design style is characterised by rounded, organic, biomorphological forms for which he sought inspiration in natural forms and biological structures. He believed that the design created by nature over millions of years of evolution represented the embodiment of perfect efficiency and beauty.
This German artist of Italian, Kurdish, Swiss, and Polish origins religiously followed his artistic credo from the early fifties of the last century, when he started developing designs for the automotive industry, up until his death in September 2019 at the age of 91.
“The Earth is round, as are all other celestial bodies – they all move in circular or elliptical paths. We can trail that pattern of round worlds orbiting each other, all the way down to the microcosms. Why should I fall in with the deluded masses attempting to square the circle at every turn? I will rather live by the philosophy of Galileo Galilei: ‘My world is round,’ as he once said.”
Colani’s artistic vision has greatly impacted generations of designers that be and to come, and his legacy is now preserved and promoted by the non-profit organisation BioDesign Foundation.
– Luigi Colani was an all-round genius – says Roberto Guerini, the late Colani’s close associate, who founded the BioDesign Foundation after his friend’s death in order to continue his mission.
I spoke with Guerini so as to learn more about one of the most prominent industrial designers of the 20th century, but also about the organisation that emerged from Colani’s philosophy of connecting design and nature. Guerini was the closest associate of the great designer in the last ten years of his life. Even though almost five years have passed since Colani’s death, Guerini’s respect for this man and his work is eternal.
– The work of Luigi Colani opened the door to a flood of designers who entered on creating organic design, and it should continue to serve as inspiration to our descendants for many generations to come. Many design and architecture magazines – such as Architectural Digest – have honoured him as the most influential designer of the 20th century – says Guerini.
He reminisces about the grand exhibition with over six thousand works and artistic visions by Colani, which was held fifteen years ago at the Triennale di Milano museum of art and design in Milan.
– At the exhibition opening, the foundation that manages Leonardo da Vinci’s legacy in Milan declared Colani the only designer worthy of comparison to Leonardo, as the modern Homo Universalis – says Guerini.
Anyway, this “modern Homo Universalis” was born in Berlin in 1928 as Lutz Colani, into a family of intellectuals and artists with multi-ethnic roots sprouting a colourful family tree. His father was a renowned Swiss-Italian architect and scenic designer of Kurdish origin, while his mother, who was of Polish origin, worked at the theatre.
The artistic family environment groomed him for the brush with his future vocation from his early childhood – for example, even as a small boy, he had to make his own toys. After World War II, he attended sculpture and painting courses at the “Hochschule für Bildende Künste” in Berlin, and then moved to Paris to study aerodynamics at the Sorbonne.
In the 1950s – at a time when he was gaining a reputation in his profession – he changed his name to Luigi for professional reasons. At that point, he had already started seeking inspiration for his design works in nature.
– Colani was immersed in diving, discovering the beauty and ingenuity of nature very early on, back in the fifties. He figured out that by closely observing nature, he could find a solution to almost any problem related to his work – notes Guerini.
At the beginning of his career, Colani also spent some time living in California, where he was head of the project group for new materials at McDonnell Douglas, but he mostly worked for the German and Italian automotive industry: BMW, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Fiat, and Volkswagen. He received a number of prestigious awards for his automotive designs, especially for sports models, and he also designed a noteworthy sports sailboat with a catamaran hull.
In the 1960s, he occupied himself with furniture design, and later expanded his operational remit to a vast variety of design forms: small household appliances and televisions, police and aircrew uniforms, lamps, cutlery, water bottles, trucks and airplanes, aircraft engine turbines, personal computers, microscopes, spacecraft, and hotels.
Since he already gained global fame and was rolling in dough in the early seventies, he founded the Studio Colani in the Harkotten Castle near Sassenberg in Germany with a large team of designers who worked for many international companies. His avant-garde studies on trucks, planes, cars, and ships often made their way to exhibitions all around the world.
In the decades to come, Colani was unstoppable – from year to year, he created wonderful products and concepts inspired by nature, which attracted a great deal of public attention. The list of his revolutionary designs is closer to a tome, but here we will mention just a few: the iconic Canon T90 camera, the Colani Cormoran airplane, the Schimmel Pegasus piano, the Formula 1 Eifelland-March 721, the Colani GT sports car, the UFO pendant lamp, the aerodynamic Colani Space Truck, and the Spitzer Mercedes Colani.
Hundreds of his lesser-known works adorn various collections and design museums all around the world. The secret of his success is – as Guerini puts it – 90 percent inspiration from nature and 10 percent artist’s intervention.
Guerini met Colani back in 2007, when he collaborated on his exhibition’s presentation in Milan.
– We hit it off right away, especially when it came to the subjects of nature, sustainability, taking inspiration from nature, and problem solving. It didn’t take me long to realise that Luigi Colani’s biodesign is not just a design language but something much bigger. It’s a lifestyle in which I clearly see his design formula: 90 percent nature + 10 percent Colani inspiration – says Guerini.
Despite the huge age gap – Guerini was born in 1960 – the two of them developed a close relationship. They worked side by side for 13 years, living a short ride from each other for many years and running a design studio in Milan together.
– We designed space hotels in tandem and became increasingly aware of how delicate the Earth is. We realised that we first needed to truly get to know our planet – and do our best to preserve it – before reaching for actual stars. We only got one planet. No other planet, not even Mars, could ever replace our beautiful Earth. If biodiversity disappears, we will vanish along with the other species – Guerini makes it clear.
Ever since Colani appointed him chief designer of Colani Design in 2013, Guerini has followed in his footsteps on his way to discovering solutions of all sorts – regarding design, environmental protection, and social issues.
– The most important lesson Colani taught us is that we must never give up. Scientific research in technology and design solutions must carry on so that we can use the world’s resources for the sake of conserving biodiversity and, by extension, saving mankind – he claims.
I wonder what Colani was like in person. What did he mean to Guerini personally and professionally?
– He still holds a special place in my life. As a person who was larger than life – albeit not without some minor flaws – he was a great mentor and friend. He had a big heart and helped many people, both morally and financially – says Guerini, putting a particular emphasis on Colani’s awe-inspiring work ethic, stamina, but also modesty.
– For years on end, he practically drew seven days a week. He always said that it would take him at least three lifetimes to put all of his ideas on paper. But he saw himself as a kind of medium, getting the ideas from above. “Listen to me, Roberto,” he would tell me, “I’m just a drawer who puts ideas on paper.” Sometimes he would even take himself by surprise after he conveyed his crazy ideas into drawings…
Oftentimes, he would call me and tell me: “Roberto, you have to come right away, I’ve created something amazing, just hurry over.” And then, when I came, I’d see him standing over some new shoe collection or a mad seaplane design on the table, for example… – recalls Guerini.
Although he held many artists of the past in high regard, such as Salvador Dali and Antoni Gaudi, whom he also knew personally, Colani considered nature to be the best artist of all. He repeated these words over and over: “The architect of nature has provided solutions for all problems and diseases. We just have to look for them and put them to use.” This restless search for solutions led Colani to the 90/10 formula and BioDesign.
– Before Luigi Colani passed away, we started writing the BioDesign Codex together, a guide for designers and manufacturers, in order to ensure all products are cruelty-free and recyclable. We decided that after his death, I would start a special ecological foundation that would bring together as many stakeholders as possible and utilise them as stewards of our planet. Two days before his death, Colani sent me a letter in which he broke down all the tasks I was supposed to do. This included the establishment of the foundation, the production of respective works by Colani, the sale of which would subsidise the addressing environmental problems, the organisation of exhibitions of Colani’s designs to show that man can live in harmony with nature, the establishment of a museum, as well as the promotion of Colani’s life legacy as an inspiration and beacon for others – says Guerini.
Nature has always been at the heart of Colani’s creations, as an inexhaustible source of inspiration for his most important works. The great industrial designer, therefore, believed that he owed nature more than declarative support; his philosophy incorporates an ethical and sustainable lifestyle that puts focus on nature and environmental protection.
The non-profit BioDesign Foundation, based in the Swiss town of St. Gallen, was established with the aim of promoting research and the implementation of sustainable solutions for nature and environment protection. Firstly, the foundation is working on ecodesign ideas for cars, hydrofoils, eVTOL aircraft, and ships for collecting plastic waste and oil spills.
– Likewise, in recent years, we have also invested a lot of money in research in order to find solutions for recycling mixed plastic waste that can otherwise only be burned – says Guerini.
Secondly, the BioDesign Foundation regularly collects information on global environmental problems, proposes solutions, and takes specific actions.
– After we picked up on the fact that no one is really acquainted with the issues this world is facing, we invested a lot of time and resources in developing The Custodians Earth Solution Platform. This is a sort of encyclopaedia that lists the world’s fundamental problems and rewrites them as challenges, solutions, and actions so as to go beyond simply raising awareness of environmental issues – Guerini tells us.
He cites the incidence of plastic waste caught in fishermen‘s nets as an example of detecting and solving problems.
– We found out that fishermen throw this waste back into the sea because, when they bring it to the shore, it turns into hazardous waste for whose disposal you have to pay about 700 euros per ton. We started buying that plastic waste from fishermen and paying for its disposal and recycling, and we also purchase damaged or worn-out plastic fishing nets that would otherwise also end up in the sea – says Guerini.
Guerini emphasises that it is not plastic to blame, but rather what people do with it.
– First and foremost, mankind must understand that plastic is a wonderful material. If used correctly, it conserves tonnes of food and is excellent for recycling and reuse. However, when it gets into nature’s system, plastic becomes a silent killer because rain and sunlight break it down into microplastics that poison the environment and seriously undermine biodiversity and human health – our interlocutor alerts us.
Guerin’s foundation came to the conclusion that microplastics, which are invisible to the naked eye, can only be eliminated from the environment in the long term if we start with the waste we can see clearly.
– For this purpose, we have gathered the largest working group in history, “The Custodians Plastic Race – We Clean The Planet”. We have developed applications for Android and Apple that show locations containing waste. Each location comes with GPS coordinates, photos, and a description of the problem – Guerini points out.
Contaminated sites are marked with a red dot; when someone starts cleaning that location, the dot turns yellow, and once the area is cleaned up and the challenge is done, the dot turns green.
– This way, we can promptly detect the problem and start solving it ASAP. All together. Without delay. This allows us to quickly and efficiently clean up entire regions, a method we have already proven to be effective – Guerini is straightforward.
Anyhow, Luigi Colani’s ingenious design solutions inspired by nature did not end up as a footnote in historical studies on industrial design of the second half of the 20th century; they continue to live on through Roberto Guerini’s foundation.
Thanks to the BioDesign Foundation, Colani’s legacy seems to have a tangible impact on the real world, unlike the legacy of the vast majority of other popular artists.
Along the same lines, Colani’s visionary approach often transcended conventional limits of design. His influence is evident not only in the aesthetics of modern products but also in the fundamental principles of sustainable and functional design. He was certainly one of the first designers to introduce the imperatives of environmental responsibility and conservation of natural resources into his creative equation.
As the world increasingly turns to sustainable and innovative solutions, the timeless wisdom of Colani’s nature-inspired philosophy of design is more relevant than ever.