Willy Guhl: Thinking With Your Hands

Willy Guhl (1915-2004), a Swiss designer and pioneer of modern design, is renowned for his world-famous furniture designs, including the Eternit garden chair and Europe's first plastic shell chair. Rejecting the traditional "Heimatstil" in favor of a holistic design approach centered around human needs, Guhl emphasized functionality and essentialism in his everyday objects. He created seating furniture, planters, and mowing machines for companies such as Dietiker, Eternit, and Aebi.

Guhl's designs and teaching methods exemplify the innovations of the post-war design industry and the evolving professional identity of industrial designers. As a teacher, he influenced many generations of Swiss designers. This comprehensive monograph explores Guhl's legacy within the context of his design and teaching practices and current design theories. It also serves as a thematically structured catalog of works, offering a complete index of all his design projects.