As the creator of the radio and record player combination SK 4 (Braun 1956), nicknamed “Schneewittchensarg” (Snow White's Coffin), he launched a new era in home listening appliances in the mid-1950s. But more than this, Hans Gugelot introduced a new cool, technical aesthetic into the modern living room – a paradigm shift equivalent to the introduction of tubular steel furniture in the 1920s. Gugelot came to prominence through his relationship with the Braun company. In the 1950s its products were revolutionized by this pragmatic pioneer. At that time, the Dutchman, who grew up in Switzerland, was also lecturing in product design at the highly influential Academy of Design in Ulm. It was in his department at the design school that the concept of the phono “building blocks” first arose, i.e. the modules that ultimately became the modern hi-fi system. Just as forward-looking, but less well-known, were his furniture designs.
He tended to think in terms of interconnected systems, following on from the “Typenmöbel” idea of classical Modernism (see e.g. Marcel Breuer and Deutsche Werkstätten) – an approach that fitted in seamlessly with ideas being pursued at the Ulm school. In fact, his earlier cabinet system M 125 clearly shows he had already been applying this concept back in Switzerland. Constructed according to a strict grid, it is the archetype of all variable wall units – shelving being one of the disciplines in which German furniture designers have most excelled. At the 1957 Interbau exhibition in Berlin his SK4 drew wide international attention along with its associated system of tables, desks and beds. M 125 was produced by Bofinger, the company that later produced Gugelot’s folding wall unit and easy-to-disassemble easychair (today from Habit). A number of innovative products, like beverage crates made of plastic or the programmatic stool Ulmer Hocker, also emanated from his genius. He went on to design beds and children’s furniture. This creative mind said that “thinking what has never yet been thought” constituted the decisive step in the design process, which could not be taught. Although apparently not a particularly gifted teacher himself, his ideas have lived on in his students. They include some major designers of the next generation such as Rido Busse, Hans ”Nick” Roericht and Reinhold Weiss.