Dieter Rams Forum
2023 – 2024

Now, however, it is only one part of a larger project that, under the title Dieter Rams Forum, shows, among other things, photographs of his wife Ingeborg Rams that have not yet been shown to the public. Ingeborg Rams joined Braun in 1957 after an apprenticeship as a photographer in Bochum from 1947 and studies at the Folkwangschule in Essen. Together with photographer Marlene Schnelle-Schneyder, she played a major role in shaping the objective style of interior and product photography. In addition to her free works, she also created numerous applied photographs for the company Vitsœ, the manufacturer of Dieter Rams’ system furniture.

For Dieter Rams, now 91 years old, it was and is not only about his own work, but also about possibilities and fields of action for a younger generation of designers. As a university lecturer at the HFBK in Hamburg, he has passed on his experience, and as an author and lecturer worldwide, he was quick to embrace responsible design that is as durable as possible. Less, but better is his credo, which has lost none of its relevance to this day. Rather, it has become increasingly important the more we degrade our natural living environment. Dieter Rams has given countless lectures on this subject and has recorded his most important texts in a book of the same name. This is available in German and English, in Chinese and soon also in Korean. The design approach of Dieter Rams is gaining interest and recognition not only in Europe and America, but also increasingly in Asia.

Dieter and Ingeborg Rams have endowed their foundation with a large part of their private assets in 2022, thus enabling a professional structure that will express the foundation’s goal of promoting sustainable and rational design even more intensively. The website will not only authentically reflect the activity of the founders, but will also promote a discourse on future industrial design. Interviews with prominent designers and architects form the prelude, which will then be widely continued.

The work of Dieter Rams has shown a path that can be followed and developed further. The temporary Dieter Rams Forum in Frankfurt would like to be a platform for this, a place of encounters and knowledge transfer.