Memento mori and the new millenium

A curvy, glossy silver plastic alarm clock by Braun from an angle on a white backdrop. Pops of colour: blue on the top alarm switch, yellow on the seconds hand.

Here is a Braun alarm clock: the AB 4A designed by Peter Hartwein and released in 2005. On paper it has a lot of the characteristics that the heads will recognize from Dietrich Lubs’ better-known earlier entries in the series:

A thin yellow plastic seconds hand with a stubby pivot and counterbalance
A contrasting colour indicating alarm functions applied to the hand, the crown, and the top switch
A high-contrast, spare dial layout with numerals in a somewhat anachronistic interwar geometric style

Front view: the silver clock sits in front of a boxy black clock, also from Braun, of a similar size. Its hands and dial markings are nearly identical.

Obviously, this example is doing something a bit different in that it’s not a simple black or white box. (Compare with the AB 1 behind it.) Looking first at the form, it seems like the priority was to shrink the case around the clock movement.

This means pushing the hands outward so the dial of the clock is almost level with the surface of the case, in turn necessitating a cylindrical crystal protruding about 8mm from the front.

This is balanced on the back by the battery door, which flares out smoothly to form a wider base to help stabilize the otherwise too-thin object. The fluid theme continues with the alarm switch on top which comes to a curved edge like clay that has been pinched.

Side views of the clocks. The silver clock in front is slimmer and more fluid in form. The crystal protrudes and we can see the frosted blur effect it has on the clock hands.

If we consider Dieter Rams’ principles of good design, the curviness of this thing is definitely weird in the context of Braun but not really in explicit contravention of any of the guidelines. The surface finish is where the real subversion sets in.

Yes, what we’re dealing with here is not metal but decadent, deceitful silver-painted plastic. As far as I can tell this finish makes its first appearance on special “millenium editions” of existing Braun designs, not surprisingly a few years after Dieter Rams left as director of design in 1995.

(Turns out in 1975, the company produced a silver-painted variant of an all-in-one audio system; confusing for a product mainly differentiated in the first place by the fact that it was made of plastic rather than sheetmetal.)

A page buried on Braun’s American website describes the mission of his successor, Peter Schneider (already deputy department chief in 1993):

“Schneider and the brand tried to break away from the very defined and ‘tight’ design style that Dieter Rams had determined. It was an experimental phase that was also trying to reconcile the needs of wider cultural contexts in a world that was becoming more and more global.”

Oliver Grabes, who took over in 2009, is said to “combine the traditional design values of Braun with modern design interpretations” under the slogan “the Strength of Pure”. Tradition, strength, purity — strange, charged words in the context of Germany and modernism filtered through international corporate English for a forgotten corner of a website. That being said, Rams’ principles ended with “back to purity, back to simplicity” — so by the 70s these were already primal ideals forgotten in the name of progress rather than aspects of a futuristic nirvana not yet realized.

The original generation of designers has aged out, but Braun does currently market through its licensees certain clocks and appliances with a more understated aesthetic. Between undisciplined experimentation and self-conscious revivalism, which approach is more in continuity with what the team did under Rams?

Apparently this clock is actually part of another special series marking 50 years since the beginning of canonical Braun design in 1955. But there’s no “regular” version of it — Braun’s product line is fragmented enough by this point that a new clock design is in itself a notable occasion.

The backs of the two clocks. Each features two separate crown for setting the time and alarm, which differ only in colour. There is also a grip for the top alarm switch on each, the silver being a fluid shape and the black one being geometric ridges.

The purist in me was pretty put off when I found this — I wouldn’t have given it a second look in the junk box if it weren’t from Braun — but Hartwein worked alongside Rams on projects as high-profile as the 80s Atelier stereo and definitely understood what he was doing here. Stylistic posture aside, there are strong functional details like the differently-shaped recesses for the easily-conflated alarm and time crowns, and a nice material flourish in the frosting on the edges of the cylindrical crystal.

The silver clock sits on the corner of a base of a 2000s Apple monitor. On the screen is a classic Aqua default wallpaper. Sitting alongside it are an orange Lacie Rugged harddrive from the same period and a silver and black Braun lighter from the 70s.

But this clock is very much a product of its time. Like my childhood Canon Powershot, scuff a painted silver corner and the material story doesn’t add up anymore. It’s not uncompromising, it’s not timeless, but what’s a practitioner of modernism supposed to do after the end of history? I keep it on my desk to remind me.