From Death
On September 16, 2019, Luigi Colani left us after a long illness. But his legacy will benefit humanity for a long time to come.
As a mentor of the international organic design scene, he has left his mark all over the world. As a futurist, he has influenced the greatest designers of the modern era with his forms. Ross Lovegrove, Zaha Hadid, Ora Ito, Tom Dixon, Fabio Novembre and many other famous designers and architects have drawn inspiration from Luigi Colani’s forms and inventions.
Unlike many designers, Professor Luigi Colani was not a pure industrial designer. He was a form scientist and 3D philosopher and years ahead of his time. That is why the capital of design – Milan – has given him the honor of a major exhibition at the Triennale. The main Leonardo da Vinci experts testify to compare only Luigi Colani with Leonardo da Vinci as the only Uomo Universalis of modernity. Luigi Colani was allowed to study with his hands the famous original da Vinci manuscripts, which are not accessible to the public.
To Life
Luigi Colani was born in Berlin in 1928. His father had Italian-Swiss roots and his mother was from Poland. In 1947 he studied sculpture and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in the German capital, Berlin. He then worked for a year in France in a coal mine to finance his studies in aerodynamics and aircraft engineering at the Sorbonne University in Paris. With this experience, he worked in the German coal region of North Rhine-Westphalia. Reminiscent of this, a permanent Colani exhibition is to be created in today’s Ruhr region, at the COLANI UFO HAUS in Lünen.
Very early during his studies he discovered his interest in the forms of nature – fish, birds, trees and all other living creatures. Their essential shape, functions and behavior, optimized in nature, Colani translated into his formal language of the rounded and often extreme lines of his artistic and technical works. Colani created the formula «90% nature and 10% inspiration Colani»: the «BioDesign». This is the human interpretation of the forms that the most perfect architect – nature – has provided over millions of years.
«We must learn again to observe nature better. That’s where we find the perfect answers.»
Throughout his life, Luigi Colani had an energy like a volcano and a tongue as sharp as a samurai sword. Many had found his manner arrogant, others funny. But those who could read between the lines sensed that he was far from arrogant. His way of expressing himself was rather a cry for help to find the human way back to ecology.
Luigi Colani gained years of experience in the wind tunnel. He quickly learned what was important in the construction of cars and airplanes. Early on in the 1950s, he himself began to build sensational, streamlined and energy-saving car bodies. He caused a sensation with his findings. In his publications on automobile design, he criticized various car brands, sometimes very publicly, for building aerodynamically incorrect cars: They would consume up to 50% more fuel because of their incorrect shapes. Not everyone forgave him for these sharp criticisms at the time. But on his early way of BioDesign he predicted already in the 60’s among other things in his prominent book “Ylem” the nature crisis in which we find ourselves today globally.
«It is important to get to know nature personally again and to go out into nature. Because you can only protect and preserve what you know and love.»
Luigi Colani was one of the first eco designers back in the 60s. His formula “Form = Energy” was and still is one of the first types of Free Energy. And the “round” continues to spin.
Colani Today
In 2010, Professor Luigi Colani began to unfold the effects of his findings and his BioDesign philosophy in Milan, just as Leonardo da Vinci once did. His team, Colani AG, continues to work under the direction of Arch. Roberto Guerini. As a student, companion and chief designer of Colani, as curator and author of the Colani Biography and the BioDesign Codex, Roberto Guerini leads the legacy of Luigi Colani into the future. Several design projects, among others for Cassina, Artemide and other international brands, have been born from this think tank, as Luigi Colani always liked to call it.
With the preparation of his personal tour exhibition, from the cradle to death, Luigi Colani himself with his design team also designed his own coffin – IL TRAPASSO – originally for a German company. It was in this that Luigi Colani himself was buried in 2019.
For the future, it was his wish that Colani clients and new Colani products be holistically accompanied in the exposed Colani CI – from design to graphics, packaging to videos and advertising campaigns. Accordingly, the studio and team in Milan were greatly expanded with other passionate Colani loyal designers and experts and Colani AG was founded.
Start of BioDesign Foundation
His most essential insights have emerged during the years of his presence in Milan observing nature using his formula «90% nature and 10% inspiration Colani». «Nature is a silent business partner and the whales, birds and plants are the clients.»
In 2017, Professor Luigi Colani built the foundation for the BioDesign Foundation. He understood that his BioDesign was no longer just a design language, but a lifestyle. He began to write the BioDesign Codex with his team: a work as a manifesto that, in its holistic view, reveals the beauty of nature and its problems and connects them to essential solutions. The result is a promising guide for today’s and future generations.
To this end, the BioDesign Foundation has brought together key experts from various disciplines around the world. Findings from the discussions and brainstorming sessions will be presented by the team in the exhibition at the world’s largest design fair in Milan in September 2021. There, Colani’s dream of all creators of beauty standing hand in hand for what is most beautiful – nature – will come true. Many internationally famous architects and designers have come on board as ambassadors, in the spirit similar to Michael Jackson’s «We are the World».
In order to be able to finance the large, exemplary nature conservation projects, Professor Luigi Colani and his team have prepared and produced a wide variety of prototypes, models and visions from the Colani Collection’s life’s work. These Colani objects, which were previously presented to the public in the world’s largest design museums, will now be used in exclusively limited editions as exposed collectors’ design objects and to finance the necessary nature conservation goals and pioneering projects of the BioDesign Foundation.
Unfortunately, the Maestro will not live to see it. But he will live on in all the hearts of people who love nature and help solve the nature problems on this earth.
«The time of ignorance is over, we can no longer afford this luxury. All people, regardless of color or religion, must stand together to ensure that this wonderful nature is preserved for our children’s children.»
Sustainability is the new cool!