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book (design) story #750

mark buchmann, karl schmid, lucius burckhardt, werner blaser, et al.:
ornament? ohne ornament

kunstgewerbemuseum zürich / wegleitung 262, 1965
printer: bodmer offset, zürich
size: 21 x 22 cm
designer: jörg hamburger

book story number 750!

the catalog for a 1965 design exhibition at the kunstgewerbemuseum zurich: "ornament? without ornament". actually a series of 5 separate catalog booklets in a folder.

classic swiss modernist (minimalist?) typography of the time: ...

... sansserif type ...

... set unjustified ...

... in a grid-based, multi-column layout.

edited by mark buchmann (1922-2007), director of the kunstgewerbeschule zürich from 1964 to 1973.

the catalog design is credited to jörg hamburger (*1935, see also story 344) who also was a teacher at the school.

interestingly, this exhibition in some ways seems to mark a turning point regarding the attitude toward the term "ornament" which had been a negative one among modernists since adolf loos' famous 1908 manifesto "ornament and crime". mark buchmann states in his introductory text that the time may have come to question some of the taboos and dogmas regarding ornaments which go back to the 1920s modernists. as we know, such dogmas were endorsed and shared by an entire generation of zurich/swiss modernist designers.

so maybe somewhat significant that the same year 1965 ...

... also marked the end of "neue grafik", the magazine of zurich's most "purist" modernist graphic designers (see story 260)!