In 1922, the young designer Jan Tschichold travelled to Offenbach to meet Rudolf Koch, the presiding genius of German “Schriftkunst” (lettering art) and designer of the finest Gothic typefaces. This was a key moment, revealing two competing views of letterforms in German culture, contrasting historicism with modernism, nationalism with universality, and expressionism as opposed to the machine aesthetic of the Constructivists. In the event, Tschichold turned away from Koch, looking instead to El Lissitzky, Kurt Schwitters, and László Moholy-Nagy, pioneers of the New Typography. In this talk, Paul Stirton will explore these debates of the 1920s and beyond, tracing the development of two opposing views of modernity in German culture.
[Tickets from £13pp. Currently a waiting list is in operation. Register your interest.]