max bill Collection

Beauty from and as Function

The Max Bill Collection is characterised by clarity, simplicity and mathematical precision.

Max Bill’s wooden furniture is the physical expression of his belief that functionality, as well as the economy of materials and design, should be combined with meeting form-related and aesthetic demands. Bill’s designs and products are based on qualities such as functionality, longevity and an economic use of materials.

For Max Bill, industrial design was of particular importance in the economic upturn during the post-war years and because of the widespread destruction left by the war: he saw industrial design as an opportunity to improve the environment with versatile products. Following the US example, the aesthetics of things were becoming important during this period. For the first time, exemplary products – most of which were ‘anonymous’ factory designs – were given a prominent place in the magazines. Authorities like Max Bill and Siegfried Giedion had a clear attitude: they despised any design that would only serve commercial interests and that, in so doing, would follow fashionable trends, thus fostering a throwaway mentality.