| ... the project for the Tokio doorhandle has become a rigorous application of ergonomics and a little game of "conjury". |
Who is he Andries Van
Onck, Hiroko Takeda
Tokio doorhandle (1990 prod. Olivari)
| from
the book "L'architettura presa per mano" (Hand on architecture) by Stefano Casciani,
Idea Books, Milan, 1992 Andries Van Onck attended the Hochschule fuer Gestaltung, the school of design founded at Ulm in 1952 by the Swiss artist Max Bill. Conceived as the ideal continuation of Bauhaus, the "School of Ulm" has had a considerable impact on the design culture of the 1950's and the 1960's. With the exception of Italy - where the excessive rationality of its method found few proselytes - the scientific approach to design developed at the School has influenced almost all designers of a Middle-European origin. However, the case of Van Onck, Dutch by birth, is quite exceptional. After completing the studies at Ulm, he moved to Italy in 1959. He here began working for Olivetti, on the project for the Elea 9003; for which design Ettore Sottsass jr. was responsible. The contact with the seething Italian scene obviously was to have a great impact on Van Onck, who took up his residence in Milan. |
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In his numerous assignments as a consultant for industries, he became known as a rigorous professional who held the truly industrial quality of the product in high regard: above all those destined for large-scale distribution, which he developed to perfection in his collaboration with the La Rinascente department store. He begun his career in the field of education at the same time, first in an experimental course founded by the Ministry of Education, and then in the more stable structure of ISIA (Higher Institute of Artistical Industries) in Rome. His work as a teacher has been important not only because of its scientific quality, but also in view of the fact that it provided him with an opportunity to improve his knowledge of the theories underlying the results of his professional activities. However, Van Onck's "method" is not merely a convergence of traditional "Ulmian" canons (morphology, ergonomics, the study of perception) but also of impure elements: a taste for play, a certain element of irony and subtle psychology. Therefore, some of his objects (the folding ladder designed for Kartell, 1991) are also personalities; his steel cutlery is reminiscent of many vegetal shapes, but without any of the nostalgia typical of Art Nouveau. When designing the doorhandles requested by Olivari in 1980, Van Onck and Hiroko Takeda did a careful study on the form; ample documentation of this remains in the form of sketches and drawings. In this sequence an initial phase, characterized by an ergonomic inspiration, can easily be recognized: the lever as an actual horizontal supporting surface, with the emphasis on the point of fastening to the door as a surface suited to the pressure of the thumb; the introduction of left and right models. The form gradually developed, the last solution being that line of Hamilton according to which an object formed by a single line, without solutions of continuity, is topologically defined. At the same time the project for the Tokio doorhandle has become a rigorous application of ergonomics and a little game of "conjury". |