Luigi Colani's round world of design

His favorite material was plastic, highly polished, in strong colors. In the 1970s, the Berlin-based designer Lutz "Luigi" Colani was one of the style-shaping artists of the international design industry. His curved designs — always with rounded edges — were recognizable at first glance as "Colani."

Luigi Colani, born in Berlin on August 2, 1928, loved the big stage for his exclusive designs. He was familiar to it from childhood, as his father worked as an architect in the film industry and his mother was a prompter for theater director Max Reinhardt. To encourage their son's creativity at an early age, his parents set up a craft room for him instead of a children's room.

Harkotten Castle, in the Münsterland region, was home to Colani's workshop. It was also his place of residence and a source of inspiration. As a successful industrial designer, Luigi Colani was able to live the feudal lifestyle. In the park, visitors could admire his crazy designs for sports cars, furniture, motorcycles or sculptures, such as this advertising model for tire manufacturer Goodyear.

The Colani egg — also called the "Ufo" — has been located on a former coal mining tower in Lünen, North Rhine-Westphalia, since 1995. With this object, the artist wanted to illustrate the structural change in the Ruhr region. The "Ufo" serves as an office space and business lounge with a panoramic view. The former mining shaft building at the foot of the tower is now used as an event hall.

The organic shape is also unmistakable here: You were bound to get a special TV-watching experience with the Colani television. The picture above shows Colani presenting one of his television models at the 1993 International Consumer Electronics Fair in Berlin. His extravagant product designs were not always practical. The Colani television, however, developed into a cult object.

Colani didn't hold back from designing cameras either. He called the ergonomically shaped SLR by Canon perhaps his best product and claimed to have revolutionized the camera world. One thing is certain: The Canon T90 camera, introduced in 1986, garnered him a lot of money and fame.

Coffee, anyone? Surely it tastes better sipped from a Colani-designed cappuccino cup, complete with a matching saucer. The black-and-white set is a curved design typical of the designer and an eye-catcher on any coffee table. In addition to dishes, Colani also designed entire kitchens.

Colani is still a role model for generations of designers today. His name is for many directly associated with spectacular and futuristic designs of automobiles, race cars, trucks and airplanes. A particularly characteristic design: the curved fenders of this convertible, the "Horch-Colani." The designer died on September 16, 2019 at the age of 91.