He has for a long time cut an unconventional figure on the German and European design scenes, well-known as a producer of purist furniture and an opponent of dress codes. The unwieldy man who hails from the foothills of the Alps has managed to put a new and contemporary face on German domestic functionalism. It was he who provoked an unpretentious plywood/chipboard Modernism that young companies like Jonas & Jonas, Kaether & Weise, Performa and Sanktjohanser now also espouse. He entered the trade, however, from quite a different angle: In the early 1980s, Nils Holger Moormann dropped out of law school to embark on a new profession. After several hard and lean years, his breakthrough came with two products. The first was Wolfgang Laubersheimer’s Verspanntes Regal ( Tense Bookcase) made of sheet steel, which thrilled industry experts and is today regarded as a new German furniture classic. The Schuhkippe shoe cabinet followed, an instant hit at the cash register. This new kind of cabinet, with a depth of only 16 cm, is exemplary in its simplicity for Moormann’s product concept, as is the Zoll D shelf, a modular system made of aluminium sheeting. “The basic idea”, the German Design Award jury wrote, “is the greatest possible reduction in material, processing and joining together of the individual parts”. Moormann is renowned for taking even young, as yet unknown designers seriously, so proposals come in by the basketful. He invests not only money, but also his heart and soul in the development of new products. In the FNP shelf system (by Axel Kufus), a best-seller, one can see the amount of thought that went into creating this minimalist but at the same time highly flexible hardboard construction. The same is true for the lightweight plywood table Spanato, the coat rack Hut Ab and the Es shelf that Konstantin Grcic thought up to make life easier for librarians and scholars. The Kant desk (by Frey & Boge), the top of which folds at the back, made him popular with pencil pushers as well. The modular wall shelf Erika ( by Storno) is one of the newer products, as is the paperback rack Buchstabler (by Tom Fischer) and the garden object Walden – Moormann’s own monumental contribution to life outdoors. All of these objects have a very dry aesthetic, comparable to a fine wine. Moormann has also made himself a name with an ingenious masterstroke: he conducted a plagiarism lawsuit against Ikea through all the courts – and won!