Luigi Colani: Translating Nature

published Jan 27, 2007
Luigi Colani Translating Nature
Luigi Colani is a great maverick of 20th Century design.

In a career spanning almost six decades, he has placed organic design firmly on the contemporary agenda, producing biodynamic designs for cars, boats, planes, ceramics, consumer goods, as well as creating alternative futuristic concepts for the design of transport and architecture.

A powerful influence on contemporary designers such as Ross Lovegrove and Future Systems, Colani emphasised the importance and evolutionary potential of design at an early date, often preempting major design trends by decades.

The Design Museum will present the first UK retrospective of Colani's work in Luigi Colani - Translating Nature from 3 March to 17 June 2007.

Born in Berlin in 1928, with an art school training supplemented by studies in aerodynamics, Colani began his career working in the car industry, producing a revolutionary all-plastic body for Simca in 1953.

He treated his car designs as sculptures, not only creating spectacular biomorphic shapes, but also greatly enhancing vehicle performance through his knowledge and passion for aerodynamics.

In the 1960s he set up his own studio where he made a name as the king of the customizers, with his own baroque idiom of sculptural forms that spilled from cars to aircraft, and then into furniture and industrial objects.