„The user as finalist“ – In memory of Rudolf Horn, designer and university teacher
After seeing Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s “Barcelona Chair” at the Grassi Museum in Leipzig, Rudolf Horn designed a cantilever club chair with a steel band frame in the mid-1960s. The model was produced in large quantities and exported almost exclusively.
The work and teachings of Rudolf Horn – one of the most influential designers in post-war German history – were characterised by fundamental questions:
How can a minimum of resources be used to satisfy a maximum of needs? How much individuality and variety can be guaranteed within the framework of standardised mass production?
With this in mind, Horn developed design approaches that focused on the idea of constructive openness to changing usage requirements. One example of this is the modular furniture range developed by Horn in the 1960s for Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau (MDW).
The programme replaced ready-made furniture with a defined use with a system consisting of standardised individual components that were suitable for furnishing hallways, bedrooms, living rooms, studies and children’s rooms and could be put together according to individual wishes and needs. This added variety to the monotony created by standardisation within an ordering framework. The focus of the furniture range, which was produced for more than 20 years, was on the “user as the finalist”.
On 19 October 2025, Rudolf Horn died in Halle (Saale).
