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| From three-legged chairs and rocking sculptures: Exhibitions on the lifework of designer Walter Papst in Kiel and Cologne [10-14-2009] The exhibition designed for the legacy of designer Walter Papst is going on tour in Germany: the collection will be shown until the beginning of November in the Stadtgalerie in Kiel, his place of birth and studies. From the middle of January 2010, the Museum für angewandte Kunst (Museum of Applied Arts) in Cologne will take the visitors on a fascinating journey through time showing the diverse facets of Walter Papst's life and works.
Bad Münder. Up to now, Walter Papst is among the less known, but by no means less significant design avant-gardists of post-war modernism. His works transformed the principles of the modern era into the spirit of optimism of the 1950s and 60s: new materials, new ergonomic findings and the reflection of new ideals fit together to form his path-breaking design conceptions.
As early as 1954, Walter Papst opened a new chapter in the world of school children's furniture with his "three-legged chair". As children had to sit still and cramped on the wrong sort of chairs already in nursery school and then in their daily school routine, he took up the fight against early postural defects - by means of a chair that encouraged different sitting positions. Together with prototypes and originals, the exhibition also shows the new edition of the three-legged wooden chair. Inspired by the possibilities that the new material GRP (glass fibre-reinforced plastic) offered, Walter Papst developed synthetic furniture for children in strong, bold colours at the beginning of the 1960s. He creates the draft for the Rocking Sculpture in this period of his works which has long since evolved to become a classic in German design history. Walter Papst's interpretation of a rocking horse presented itself as a "flowing" and abstract design. Ultimately, the children themselves and their fantasy were to decide what type of a rocking creature this was.
The alternative to the roofed wicker chair created in 1968 in the form of an "adjustable seating and lounger facility with a protective weather cover" marked a further milestone in German design history. Made out of weather-resistant polyester, the originals to be seen in the exhibition are impressive structures up to the present day by virtue of their functionality and lightness.
Other chapters of Walter Papst's life almost unknown thus far are thematized in the exhibition, one of these being his passion for the Cologne carnival. On the other hand, his success as a designer and his subsequent independence enabled a further paradigm shift: for example, he dealt intensively right up til old age with the theories about the origins of humanity, which he summarized in his main literary work "Der Götterbaum" ("The Tree of Gods"). Even though he was denied recognition as a futurologist, the documents that he created attest to a visionary power, that run through the works of Walter Papst like a golden thread from the time of his early design concepts.
From three-legged chairs, rocking sculptures and ways back to the future: the designer Walter Papst (1924 - 2008). The exhibition is open until November 8, 2009 in the Stadtgalerie Kiel. The exhibition will be shown from January 18 to March 21, 2010 in the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Cologne.
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