How directly has Peter Behrens Affected Your Life?

Born 1868 in Hamburg, Peter Behrens was a highly influential figure to both twentieth century German art development and to modern day society, in an international sense. His expansive career included architecture and design, in which fields he introduced important philosophies while also laying foundations for the future. Behrens is responsible for many of the things we take for granted today; his work for the German company AEG utilized graphic design in a manner that surrounds us now in nearly all personal and professional environments. Whether we’re out shopping or looking to be hired by a certain company, Behrens’ legacy is there to affect our visual perception and the condition of our contemporary society.

Being orphaned at fourteen years old would be a devastating circumstance to anybody, but to Peter Behrens it at least provided one advantage. The substantial inheritance his father had left gave him the opportunity to spend his time pursuing his passions, and for Behrens the desired focus was with art. The early years of Behrens’ creative career were spent studying between his birthplace of Hamburg and the city of Düsseldorf, with a concentration in painting. He moved to Munich in 1890 after getting married, in order to be where the German arts and crafts renaissance was happening (Meggs 2012). Behrens was a highly multidisciplinary man; his primary jobs in these early years involved being a painter, illustrator and book binder (Flask, 2009), and he later expanded into interior design, architecture, and graphic arts - areas where he made his biggest impressions. There were two houses and one corporate position involved in his life that exemplified his wide skill set and innovative thinking particularly well. The first house was a result of his admission to the Darmstadt Artists' Colony in 1899, which gave him the opportunity to build his own studio-home and everything inside of it, from the functional components to the decorative (Meggs 2012). The second house, called “New Ways” (due to the previously unexplored approach to architecture), was commissioned in 1926 and is a true testimony to Behrens’ bold, innovative nature. Although Britain at the time rejected the abstract philosophies belonging to Behrens and Bauhaus (Curtis, 1996), history recognises New Ways as being the first modernist house in the UK and the grounds for further development in modernist architecture (Meggs 2012). Behrens’ position of artistic consultant for AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesellschaft – a well known manufacturing company) beginning in 1907 yielded what he is perhaps best known for: the first comprehensive, visual establishment of corporate identity (The father, 2011). Prior to 1907 businesses had used naive mascots and trademarks, but had no concept of a complete identity. Behrens began creating AEG’s identity with the first case of a logo, using the company’s initials in a honeycomb configuration. The logo became as recognizable to the public as it was to the company’s employees (Heller and Vienne, 2012). He also designed a typeface for the company called “Behrens Antiqua” to ensure unity to their printed materials (Meggs 2012), and AEG’s grand Turbine Factory which had innumerable impressive and atypical qualities of architecture at the time (Curtis, 1996). Overall, consideration of the entire form and the desire to unionize form and function while breaking new ground was evident in Behrens’ work.

Many principles were explored in the span of Behrens’ career, but ultimately, the German Jugendstil movement’s concept of the totality of art played the most prominent role in his works. His variety of talents allowed him to follow the movement’s embrace of architecture, decorative arts (such as furniture design and lighting), and the idea that art should be a lifestyle. With the 1907 founding of Deutsche Werkbund (the German Association of Craftsmen), Behrens and the other members worked towards the achievement of many things: unionizing art and technology, giving form and meaning to machine-made things, and improving the overall taste level in Germany through the re-design of everyday objects (Meggs 2012). Ultimately they were working with a philosophy called Gesamtkultur, which translates loosely as “synthesis of the arts”, or “total artwork” (Eskilson, 2007). The Deutsche Werkbund saw design as a vehicle for societal progression (Meggs 2012) – a similar idea shared by German art critics and Behrens in 1900, in that there was a sure relationship between art and design to the condition of a society (Meggs 2012). The combined focus on practicality and aesthetics made the Deutsche Werkbund a highly influential force among the general public. 1907 was also the year that Behrens’ work for AEG began, and it is through his industrialized designs that the group’s objectives were first manifested on a large scale (Eskilson, 2007). Visually, Behrens’ work commonly contained geometric elements, which progressed significantly while working with the Dutch architect Mathieu Lauweriks in 1904. Before Lauweriks became faculty of the Dusseldorf School of Arts and Crafts (where Behrens was the director), Behrens had briefly experimented with squares as a base in design motifs (Meggs 2012). Using Lauweriks’ theory of geometry providing the basis for proportioning and spatial division, Behrens pushed his initial experiments further and ultimately influenced the following years of constructivism in graphic design. Another principle of his was using geometry as a tactic for visual organization – for example, the gridded format of images in a book (Meggs 2012). His application of geometry also played a major role in the development of twentieth-century architecture, and his doctrine undoubtedly influenced his students, including Walter Gropius (founder of the Bauhaus school), Adolf Meyer, and Mies van der Rohe (Meggs 2012). In addition to impacting designers, society and the art movements during his time, Behrens’ contribution to the development of design has carried to present day, providing contemporary graphic designers with the foundation of his philosophies and an expanded market for their practice.

There are many aspects of modern day culture that appeal to us for seemingly obvious reasons; Apple products, for example, are in high demand for their excellent technology and minimalist appearance. It could be argued that our perception of Apple is demonstrative of the consumerist condition of our society – the bitten macintosh silhouette is instantly recognizable, any word with a lowercase “i” in front of it is associated with the brand, and we understand terms such as “Genius Bar” and “AppleCare” without any context. This association is something that has become standardized within any sort of brand or business today, but it wasn’t always so (The father, 2011). As discussed previously it was Behrens’ work for AEG that changed the relationship of design to industry, and in addition to making a huge change in the way culture has developed, the concept of corporate identity dominated the design professions after 1945, essentially creating a new market that demanded professional graphic designers (Eskilson, 2007). Building the identity of a company involves hiring a designer to create things like a logo, signature typeface, recognizable colour scheme, and packaging, with endless other possibilities. Effective advertisements that display cohesion to a brand also require the professionalism of a graphic designer, and great advertisements go beyond the purpose of marketing; in some cases, they’re noted by our society as works of art. There are innumerable design blogs with sections dedicated to sharing great cases of corporate identity and advertising, celebrating the creativity of the works and the visionary talent of the designers. Aside from corporate identity, Behrens’ principles show up in things as seemingly simple as our attraction to simplified shapes in graphics – gridded poster design, modern architecture, perhaps even something like a preference to graph paper to use for thought organization. In a sense, Behrens’ philosophies and work have impacted more than integral aspects to the development of art; they have given our modern day society a heightened sensitivity to design, and particularly to graphic design. Whether or not the general public recognizes it, much of our personal and professional lives revolve around Behrens’ legacy.

The height of Peter Behrens’ career may be more than a full century into the past, but his forays into unexplored graphic design territory, experiments with geometry in design, and embrace of art as a whole affect our modern world strongly. In many cases of job-hunting, we do a little bit of research to see if we’ll be a good fit. Our ultimate judgement is usually drawn from the visual identity of that company – if their website is full of colourful, rounded shapes and sans-serif type, we might feel that they’re promoting vitality and optimism. Or, if we see sharp edges and a monochromatic palette, we might think that they’re a serious, analytical business. The sense of unity and identity instigated by Behrens can apply to numerous other aspects of our lives – what products we choose to buy, how we feel inside our home environments, maybe how we construct our own artwork. How directly has Peter Behrens affected your life?