Kunstgewerbemuseum: Rudolf Horn – Living as an open System

Rudolf Horn

Living as an open System

Rudolf Horn is one of the most important German designers of the post-war years. His visions of the utmost variability in furniture and, later, dwelling places, and of the “user as finalist” became the motto of his work. They mark important caesuras in the history of design and are today more topical than ever, with slogans such as “open design”, “co-creation” or the “prosumer”, the self- or co-producing consumer.

Exhibition Site Deutsches Stuhlbaumuseum, Rabenau

DATES 24/11/2019—22/03/2020

The Museum of Decorative Arts of the Dresden State Art Collections is devoting an exhibition to this idol of design that conveys his visions on various levels. “Who do you want to make it for?” came to be a leading question – refreshing to hear in today’s context. The designer Rudolf Horn was born in 1929 in Waldheim. He became famous primarily through the assembly furniture of the Deutsche Werkstätten (MDW), which he conceived, together with Eberhard Wüstner, in his Leipzig studio in the years 1966/67. It was here that the idea of variability for the user was put into practice.

The so called MDW programme was not to be designed as finished furniture but disposed according to the needs of users as a variably functional modular system, which first took shape in the home. It was developed on commission of the VEB Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau and presented with great success in 1967 at the Leipzig Fair; it was subsequently manufactured by the concern for almost thirty years. Rudolf Horn continued working with his revolutionary approach on the concept of variability and soon transposed it onto the entire interior design of the home.

The exhibition presents further projects by Horn besides the MDW programme, such as the Variable Flat of 1969 and the pilot project of user-defined home living – the experimental building in Rostock. The exhibition is conceived as intervention in the “show depot Deutsche Werkstätten” Hellerau with the objective of paying homage to Horn on his ninetieth birthday; it presents not only his projects but also many stories of the “users” connected with the MDW programme. In addition an interactive home-living laboratory is set up which transforms Horn’s ideas for variable interior design into a live experience for big and small.

From 24. November 2019 to 22. March 2020 the exhibition will be presented at the Deutsches Stuhlbaumuseum Rabenau

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