Electric kettle, model 3607 1909
Peter Behrens DE
AEG DE
chromium-plated brass, reed, wood
purchase via Ketterer Kunst München, 1996
The appointment in 1907 of Peter Behrens as artistic consultant at AEG, the German manufacturer of electrical appliances, would prove to be a successful strategic decision. In the years that followed, this versatile autodidact designed virtually everything that could be designed for a company, from factory buildings and worker housing to electrical appliances like this water kettle down to graphic products such as posters and logos. Behrens helped shape the identity of AEG and he managed to successfully market his client’s brand. His rational principles, in keeping with the vision of the Deutsche Werkbund which he had co-founded, resulted, after explorations of art nouveau and neoclassicism, in a moderate modern formal idiom. Ulterior famous modernists such as Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe were apprenticed to him as young designers.
SOURCES
Mathias Remmele, Others were more radical, www.stylepark.com, 31/5/2013.