The plastic door-handle is a German innovation. And it’s a textbook example for what a wide variety of requirements a new invention must fulfil if it is to meet with success. When the button and plastics factory from northern Hesse began producing door-handles made of polyamide instead of metal toward the end of the 1950s, hardware stores – the major sales channel for door fittings at the time – at first reacted warily. It took a change of generations for the new material to come into its own: In the mid-1960s, Rudolf Wilke joined the family enterprise. The son of the founder had occupied himself with plastics during his engineering studies and was therefore not only in a position to assuage retailers’ fears, but also able to develop product forms and manufacturing processes suitable for the material’s inherent properties. A major order – for the interior fitting of the new university buildings in nearby Marburg – finally assured the newfangled product its breakthrough. The architect wanted to create a total solution, i.e. to closely coordinate forms and colours in the interior design. Plastic was the perfect answer. The year was 1968, a time when Pop Art and the synthetic material of plastic were suddenly gaining social respectability – a trend that Hewi helped to instigate. Rudolf Wilke finally developed the door-handle 111. This ur-model by no means had a completely revolutionary form, but rather a U-shape singularly appropriate to the material. It thus fulfilled one important principle of good design, and is today an unusually widely known classic. Wilke took this handle as the springboard for a growing product family, a system entirely along the lines of the Ulm School. The simple formal vocabulary was copied again and again. Later on, after collecting a sizable number of design awards, Hewi substantially expanded its product range. The door-handles were joined by new lines such as bathroom accessories, electronic lock systems and signage. A new focus was on “barrier- free” products, such as the LifeSystem, which provides safe and comfortable bathroom use for the disabled. In its original business, door-handles, Hewi has likewise ventured onto new terrain. Now stainless steel plays a key role. In combination with aluminium, it has given rise to yet another innovative design in the 180 C series.