1980 From Bauhaus to Our House is American writer Tom Wolfe’s settling of accounts with the taste dictates of the domestic design ascetics. – The FS-Linie swivel chair animates the user to a more active form of sitting.

 

1981 All is well apparently in the world of the new German objectivity. The wall clock ABW 41 by Dietrich Lubs and the Mono Classic teapot by Tassilo von Grolmann fuse formal sophistication with technical elegance. – Otl Aicher’s plea for a more communicative kitchen based on a professional standard is implemented the following year in System b from Bulthaup. – When the Memphis group in Milan shows wild and whimsical furniture, handmade objects and lamps at an exhibition, the post-modern counterreformation gets off to a rollicking start. Similarly to what happened with Jugendstil a century earlier, the public, only stunned for a brief moment, reacts as if it had long been waiting for this kind of cheekiness. – Marcel Breuer dies in New York.

 

1982 The exhibition Möbel Perdu – Schöneres Wohnen in Hamburg offers under its suggestive title a panorama of the delight in experimentation that is bubbling up from the underground and congealing into the “Neues Deutsches Design” (New German Design) movement. – Richard Sapper’s model 9091 is the first “designer water kettle”. – Apocalyptic punk or disco. Anything goes. In the 1980s a climate of hedonism reigns. Design, often merely another word for luxury, forms the perfect expression of this mood. What is chic, especially in terms of furniture, is now largely defined in Italy. Different yet co-existing lifestyles crystallize out: the rise of brands such as Bree, Brühl or Rolf Benz can be viewed against this backdrop, as can the rediscovery of the kitchen and the bathroom. – Frog is Germany’s first internationally active design studio. Its Apple desktop computers ring in the PC age and become everyday requisites, joining the ranks of radios and television sets. – Hundreds of thousands demonstrate in vain against nuclear warheads.

 

1983 The Möbel Perdu gallery in Hamburg becomes a home base for domestic design revolutionaries. In Germany, unease in the face of the seemingly nature-given hegemony of the Bauhaus paragons could at first find no adequate vent. When Punk and Memphis open the floodgates, there is nothing left to stop the rampages of the young and the restless. They incorporate kitsch and camp, garbage and pop, Bauhaus and the 50s, and last but not least their deep-seated queasiness at traditional German domesticity into their furniture parodies. Unlike the Italian trailblazers, the style rebels in these climes show a marked penchant for raw materials such as stone, steel or untreated wood, also utilizing half-finished goods such as cardboard or cellophane as well as ready-mades found in everyday life. The converted shopping cart Consumer's Rest from Stiletto becomes the emblem for the revolt. It is followed in the ensuing years by equally ambivalent caricatures such as the Verspanntes Regal (Tense Bookcase) by Wolfgang Laubersheimer, Heinz Landes’ concrete cantilevered chair Solid, and the Tabula Rasa table-and-bench ensemble from Ginbande. – Marianne Brandt dies in Kirchberg near Chemnitz.

 

1984 The Zyklus easychair by Peter Maly and the YaYaHo lighting system by Ingo Maurer represent ingenious syntheses of post-modern whimsy and Teutonic functionalism. – The T-Line seating system by Burkhard Vogtherr and Tattomi (1985) by Jan Armgardt boast a high level of innovative charisma and enduring visual impact. – A whole series of quite disparate firms, including Thonet, Tecta, Tecnolumen and Vitra as well as later ClassiCon, Richard Lampert and sdr+, develop a historically reflexive relationship to  their products. Important milestones in German design for living find their way back into their catalogues. An exception is formed by the company Anthologie Quartett, which still today devotes its energies to reviving the bold spirit of the 1980s. – Those who wish to can decorate their homes with the brainchildren of star designers. Brands such as Alfi, FSB and WMF rediscover the designer-branded product once introduced by Rosenthal, working sometimes on individual products and sometimes on an ongoing basis with the industry greats whose names promise quality design, an attractive image and healthy sales. – Let there be light: Following in the footsteps of Erco, Ingo Maurer, Anta, Mawa and Serien, Tobias Grau establishes yet another upscale brand for German lighting design.

 

1985 Galerie Weinand in West Berlin becomes a showcase for “Neues Deutsches Design”, or “NDD” for short, with exhibitions such as Betonmöbel (Concrete Furniture) or Griff in den Staub (Grab the Dust). Although the
exciting home design ideas are not taken up by department stores, they do change taste standards thanks to their media presence. – For the first generation of high-speed trains, the ICE, Alexander Neumeister designs not only the sleek outer skin, but also the bold interiors. – Herbert H. Schultes is named head designer at Siemens, a corporate giant whose products are ubiquitous in German households. – Ferdinand Kramer dies in Frankfurt.

 

1986 The Düsseldorf exhibition Gefühlscollagen – Möbel von Sinnen (Emotional Collages – Furniture Out of Its Senses) shows objects caught between art and scrap recycling.

 

1987 Ironically enough, the style uprising of the 1980s is the work of the first generation of designers, who also studied this field. The deconstruction of cosy complacency they initiated remains however largely a sub-cultural happening. Although it attracts a significant media response, not a single model created in the name of “New German Design” goes into series production. More than a few of its academically trained protagonists return to the universities, such as Andreas Brandolini and Uwe Fischer, who henceforth form a guild of opinion-makers. The German furniture industry, by contrast, largely ignores the homemade “Design Spring”. – At documenta 8, visitors recover from the exhibition’s first design show by having a coffee at Café Casino, bizarrely decorated by the Pentagon group. This is also where users can access the Internet, a technology that is still plagued by connection problems. – Performa becomes a precursor of the young German firms committed to profound thought and unpretentious reserve. – The EU starts conferring its own European Design Award. – When someone says design, he now means Milan.

 

1988 Dieter Sieger moves to Harkotten Castle and makes use of its strategic location at least as cleverly as Luigi Colani before him.

 

1989 The Spot easychair by Stefan Heiliger and Anita Schmidt’s sofa 322 are the very incarnation of “designer furniture”. – FNP by Axel Kufus is the first in a long series of cleverly conceived shelf systems to spring from the singular convolutions of the German mind. – Authentics introduces semi-transparent plastic, a small aesthetic refinement that changes the lookof the home. – Vitra founds a design museum. – The  crumbling of the Berlin Wall comes as a surprise to everyone.