Max Bill was born on the 22nd December 1908 in the Swiss Winterthur. Max Bill finished an apprenticeship as a silversmith at the arts school in Zurich from 1924 to 1927. A speech by Le Corbusier made him start his architecture studies at the Bauhaus Dessau afterwards.
In 1929 Max Bill went back to Zurich, where he worked as architect, painter, graphic designer, synthetics designer, publicist and product designer. There he became shapes teacher at the arts school in 1944 in the institute, where he studied years ago.
From 1951 to 1956 he was co-founder, architect and first rector of the design university in Ulm. From 1961 to 1956 he embossed the Swiss country exposition in Lausanne as managing architect of the “Bilden und Gestalten” (apply and design) sector, before he became professor at the Estate University for applied arts in Hamburg between 1967 and 1974. Max Bill received the “Praemium Imperiale” in 1993. He passed by on the 9th of December of 1994.
His clocks’ collection for Junghans reflects the tension between strong, reduced design on one side and the usage of flowing, natural forms on the other side. The Max Bill clocks are still today real classic examples for the strength of a simple idea, while for example his door-push, which emerged in his Ulm times, doesn’t only get its strength out of the simple form but also out of harmonic lines that follow natural function.
Website by Max Bill
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