textile designer, born 1939, studio in Amsterdam / Netherlands

 

Thin copper wire and black linen thread twist around tufts of horsehair. Black glass beads glisten on transparent ground. Ulf Moritz has considerably expanded the notion of material or fabric. The only thing that is typical about his work, he oncesaid, is that he does not repeat himself. Moritz won’t be pigeonholed and is regarded as Germany’s most creative home textile designer. Like Luigi Colani, Peter Maly and Dieter Rams, he belonged to the war generation that had a strong influence on post-war Modernism and the image of German design. In the late 1950s Ulf Moritz studied at the Krefeld School of Textile Engineering. Georg Muche, for years head of the Bauhaus weaving mill, was one of his teachers. For Moritz, who was born in Poland, the beginning of his career in 1960 went hand in hand with an important move: to Amsterdam, where he has lived ever since. In the 1960s, he worked for a Dutch fabric manufacturer. A decade late, while teaching at Eindhoven’s School of Design, he had his breakthrough as a freelance designer. Companies like Christine Kröncke, Felice Rossi, Interlübke and Montis were now his customers. He beganworking with Sahco in 1986, a co-operation that is still of prime importance today. Year after year, Moritz presents a collection of exceptional designs for that company, and he is also responsible for shaping Sahco’s corporate image. This just goes to show how far the creative potential in a lasting relationship betweendesigner and manufacturer can be stretched. Toward the end of the 1990s, Moritz embarked on a successful foray in a new direction with the Walls wallpaper collection (for Marburger Tapetenfabrik). In the meantime, he has also designed sofas and chairs (for Team by Wellis and others) and vases (for Leonardo). But his main focus remains fabric, where he is not only the leading producer of ideas, but also manages, thanks to his profound knowledge of manufacturing technology, to create affordable products.