yup, 70’s had just as much nutters as today. only difference is that it was harder to show the products of your drug riddled brain without the easy access to CAD and blogs as we now have.
bottom line- so what are you saying? this stuff is good, or just as crazy as the other “current” impossible concepts you’ve commented on?
with the advantage of retrospect (to keep in mind when looking at today’s concepts), while much of lugi’s (and other great futurist designers) may have been pretty far out there, there is no doubt that some basic principles have crept there way into the modern day aesthetic and consciousness i would argue. check any luigi collani stuff and compare it to Karim’s blobject fame, and the inspiration could not be more apparent.
i for one welcome the far-out concepts of every designer, not so much as an indication of what is possible (agreed, half the stuff is just stupid), but as the fodder for the foundations of tomorrow’s design.
well the thing i like about him (rather then the current crop) is he at mockedup/built his visions…not just marker/alias…flying cars, aint going to happen…human nature/energy cost…so sorry
I really only knew Colani through his newer work (which lead me to believe he was a bit of a loony) but looking through his website http://www.colani.de , wow, I gotta say he is an exceptional designer/artist/sculptor to say the least. I had no idea he played such a key role in the design of the Canon T90, which introduced the body shape found on almost all SLR and DSLR cameras made in the last 20 years.
I’m still not a big fan of anything he’s done since 2000, I feel like a lot of his newer works look dated… which probably has more to do with the fact that I am so accustomed to seeing similar works from younger designers who have undoubtedly been biting off of Colani’s body of work since the 50’s and have added their own flair to the aerodynamic/organic aesthetic.
I really like the Colani stuff, it is so out there. I saw an interview of him on youtube the other day, and he was saying that he had all but given up on Europe and N. America. And I’d say rightfully so. I have never seen anything daring from students, it is like people are afraid. He went on to explain why he likes Asian design (he teaches at a bunch of schools in China, I think). It made me really want to mix it up, and do some crazy stuff, in regards to design.
Also do look for the old Colani books from CarStyling Magazine, they are pretty cool, if you like that sort of thing.
Thanks for posting this Zip, dunno what this says about me, but i’m really impressed with his stuff. You look at other Soviet design and you have things like the T-34 or the post war bombers they ripped off of us and think everything thing soviet has to be communist-functional, but this has given me a different perspective…
Sad that in the US this kind of design thinking is reserved for Hollywood and video games…
The one thing I always wonder about Colani is where he gets his funding from. All these extravagant projects without any real client behind them. His body of work looks like a collection of internal projects.
Agreed. Some, SOME, of the Lugi stuff is cool, some of it is an aesthetic mess of conflicting forms, and the fact that you spent a lot of cash to build doesn’t impress me as much as good design does.
I’m still impressed with the new crop of 3D stuff like this:
Equally an aesthetic jumble, but still fun to look at and with as much chance of going to production as a Coloni truck.
Amen!!! Just because you can build a full size plywood, foam and fiberglass mockup of a plane, ship, steam engine etc. doesn’t mean it’ll work. It just means you have an ridiculously big bank account to go with your ridiculously big ego.
I’ve seen clients come totally on-board for designs they were skeptical about, just from seeing a real looking appearance model. Maybe the people with cash funding can’t always just see a sketch and visualize it as a real world object - even if the design isn’t perfect, they get a lot more excited about it
though it might not have happened, it would have given him a way better chance to get his vehicles produced, which would have been pretty rad
Ross Lovegrove , London :
"Colani’s place is secured as perhaps the most influential form visionary of the twentieth century in the field of industrial design. He has created dreams that push the limits of our perception of space and technological possibility to the edge of the Earth’s stratosphere, and as the world of industrial design sought safety and acceptance through restraint he just kept blowing minds with the fusion of art and organic design. He remains ever relevant, connecting man to machine in the most profoundly utopian of ways.
Seeing his work at the age of fifteen made all possible for me because I realized that instinct is far more powerful than logic as the starting point for all new possibilities in our evolving world. Now, thirty years later, the incredible heart and soul of this man, who has created by hand and eye such an immense body of work, continues to inspire me as a friend and fellow techno-anthropomorphic believer lost in space but always supporting the potential of man."
It is though, IMHO, the distilling cycle between mockup models and drawings - then more mockup models and more drawings - over and over again that produces the best looking stuff (and functioning) - going from 2d to 3d and reviewing,critiquing, testing then back again.
I have to say that some of colani’s vehicle stuff looks like the homer - not sure how many mockup cycles they went through… the bic lighter is nice though…
whatever… theres something to learn from his work weather or not anybody thinks it looks good. Just not sure what it is yet -