Design Is Invisible (1980)
Design objects? Of course we can see them: the whole gamut ofdesigns and devices, from a building to a can opener. The designer
gives them a logical, ready-to-use form, premised on certain external parameters: in the case of the can opener, on the structure of acan. The designer of cans, for his part, considers how a can opener
functions. That is his external parameter.
So we can perceive the world as a realm of objects and divide
these, for example, into houses, streets, traﬃc lights, kiosks, coﬀeemakers, washing-up bowls, tableware or table linen. Such classiﬁcation is not without consequences: it leads namely to that concept of design which isolates a certain device—a coﬀee maker, let’ssay—acknowledges its external parameters, and sets itself the goalof making a better, or more attractive one; that is, of producing thetype of thing likely to have been described in the 1950s as “Good
Form.”¹
But we can divide the world up in other ways too—and, if I haveunderstood A Pattern Language² correctly, that is what Christopher
Alexander strives to do. He does not isolate a house, a street or a
newsstand in order to perfect its design and construction; instead,

Max Bill’s book Die Gute Form (1957) decisively shaped the criteria propoundedat the time, for functional yet aesthetically pleasing “timeless” design. The German Ministry of Economics and Technology awarded the “Federal Prize forGood Form” for the ﬁrst time in 1969. Since 2006, it has been presented annually under the name “Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany.”
2 Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language. Towns, Buildings, Construction,
Oxford University Press, New York 1977.
1153

he distinguishes an integral composite such as the street cornerfrom other urban composites; for the newsstand thrives on the factthat my bus has not yet arrived, and so I buy a newspaper; andthe bus happens to stop here because this is an intersection where
passengers can change to other lines. “Street corner” simply tagsa phenomenon that encompasses, above and beyond the visible
dimension, elements of an organizational system comprised of bus
routes, timetables, magazine sales, traﬃc light sequences and so on.
This way of dividing up our environment also triggers a design
impulse—yet one that takes account of the system’s invisible components. What we need, perhaps, so that I won’t miss my bus whilescrabbling for change, or because the newsagent is serving anothercustomer, is a simpliﬁed method of paying for a newspaper. Somepeople instantly dream up a new invention—an automatic magazine dispenser with an electric hum—while we imagine intervening somehow in the system: selling magazines for a round sum,or introducing a subscription card that we can simply ﬂash at the
newsagent—in any case, some kind of ruling to tackle magazine
distribution and that institution “the morning paper.”What are institutions? Let us forget Christopher Alexander’sstreet corner in favor of a clearly identiﬁable institution, the hospital. What is a hospital? Well, a building with long corridors, polished ﬂoors, glossy white furniture and little trolleys loaded withtableware for mealtimes.
This view of the hospital takes us back to the traditional design
brief: the architect and the designer are called upon to plan hospitals with shorter corridors, more convivial atmospheres and morepractical trolleys. As everybody knows however hospitals are now
bigger, their corridors longer, the catering service more anonymousand patient care less caring. That is because neither the architect
nor the designer were allowed to intervene in the institution per se,154

but only to improve existing designs and devices within set externalparameters.
So, let’s describe the hospital as an institution. Despite all its visible features, it is ﬁrst and foremost a system of interpersonal relationships. Interpersonal systems are also designed and planned, inpart by history and tradition yet also in response to the people alive
today. When the Ministry of Health decrees that hospital catering is
not the responsibility of medical staﬀ but a management issue—or
vice versa—this ruling is part and parcel of the institution’s design.
The hospital owes its existence above all to the three traditionalroles of doctor, nurse and patient. The nurse’s role evokes a myriadof associations, from the Virgin Mary through to Ingrid Bergman,and appears to be clear-cut. In reality it is far from clear-cut, as it incorporates a great number of more or less vital activities. The doctor,
historically only a minor ﬁgure on the hospital stage, shot to the top
in the nineteenth century, on a wave of scientiﬁc claims swallowed
whole with religious fervor, and perpetuated to this day by TV andtrashy novels, with the result that a formidable whiﬀ of heart transplants now permeates even the most backwoods county hospital.
And what about the patient? He has no role to play at all, you say?
He simply falls ill, through no fault of his own?—Come now, please
make up your mind whether you want to be sick or healthy!—Evidently
there is an element of choice in the matter. We can—and must—
decide one way or the other, otherwise we will irritate our boss—
our boss at work, or the hospital boss. A patient lies down—in
Chodowiecki’s day he used to sit—or ambles gratefully around thepark, convalescing. He resigns himself in any case to the three-rolespiel, although it has long been due for an overhaul; but more ofthat later.
Do other similar institutions exist? Yes, indeed: the night. Yetnight is a natural phenomenon, you say? The sun is shining on the155Antipodes and so it is dark in our neck of the woods? Anne Cauquelin was the ﬁrst to posit that the night is artiﬁcial. And there
is no disputing that human behavior shapes the night one way or
another, in line with various man-made institutions. In Switzerland I can work undisturbed after 9 p.m. then go to bed. To give
someone a call at that hour is considered impolite. In Germany mytelephone is quiet all evening then springs to life at 11 p.m.—for thecheap-rate period begins at 10 p.m., whereupon all internationallines are immediately overloaded, and it takes around an hour to
get a connection.
Thus the night, which evidently originally had something to
do with the dark, is a man-made construct, comprised of opening
hours, closing times, price scales, timetables, habits and streetlamps.
The night, like the hospital, is in urgent need of redesign. Why does
public transport cease to run at precisely the moment people drain
their last glass in a wine bar, leaving them no option but to take thewheel? Might not a rethink of opening hours make the streets safer
for women obliged to return home on foot, late at night? Are wegoing to live to see the day also in these climes, when car ownershipis the sole guarantee of a measure of safety?
Let’s take another institution, the private household. For the
traditional designer, the household is a treasure trove of appliances
clamoring to be planned. There are endless things here to invent or
improve: coﬀee makers, food mixers, and dishwashers, to name only
a few. The planner deploys novel means to ensure everything stays
the same. Moves to reform the household were made around 1900:
early mechanization fostered collectivization as well as untold experiments with canteens, public laundries and built-in, centralizedvacuum cleaners. Thanks to the invention of small motors theseamenities were reinstated later in the private household. Kitchen
appliances save housewives’ time, you say? Don’t make me laugh!
156

The war on dirt is a subsystem within the institution, privatehousehold. What is dirt? Why do we ﬁght it? And where does it
go after we emerge supposedly victorious? We all know the answer.
We just don’t like to admit it. The dirt we ﬁght along with the detergents we use to do so is simply environmental pollution by anothername. But dirt is unhygienic, you say, and one cannot avoid a spot ofcleaning? Strange! Because people used to clean, even before theyknew about hygiene. And besides, the ﬁlters used in vacuum cleaners are not ﬁne enough to contain bacteria eﬀectively. Which meansthat vacuum cleaners merely keep bacteria in circulation. What ashame for the vacuum cleaner, the designers’ favorite brainchild!
Then how do people clean in hospitals, where hygiene is truly
vital? Hygiene in hospitals rests as far as I can see on three pillars.
The ﬁrst pillar is purely symbolic—for sparkling white surfaces andthe shine on polished (which is to say, wax-smeared) ﬂoors are considered the epitome of cleanliness. The second is antiseptics—toxins, in other words: an endless ﬂow of new disinfectants designed tokill bacteria. Any success in these stakes is unfortunately short-lived
however, for resistant strains never cease to develop, and are engendered selectively in fact, by these very toxins. And the third pillar isvacuum cleaning. In contrast to the domestic vacuum cleaner that
releases dust back into the same room it was captured, hospitals’
centralized air conditioning and vacuum-cleaning systems spread
dangerous spores all over the place. Is there a remedy for such unpropitious circumstances? Of course—but it falls neither in thedesigner’s brief nor within his external parameters! The key to the
problem is to redesign the health care system, above all by promoting decentralization.
Let’s name one last institution: the production site. A lot could
be said on this topic but let us stick to one point only: workplaces—by which we mean jobs—are also man-made design objects. We’re157

not talking here about making chairs at work more comfortable, orabout cheering the place up a little, with fresh wallpaper and a few
potted plants. The object of design in this context is that particularpart of the production process assigned to each individual laborer,
and the degree of energy, knowledge and skill, respectively of ignorance, boredom or mindlessness that must be invested at any particular point in the production process. This applies not only to production sites in the narrower sense of the word, i.e. to factory jobs,
but also to administrative and clerical work. Workplaces—jobs—
are designed ostensibly for productivity; yet productivity of a sortakin to counter-productivity. Automation, as it is called, destroys
jobs that have hitherto been a source of satisfaction while otherjobs in the manual sector, which could and should most urgently
be rationalized, remain unchanged. Here we can touch only brieﬂyon the problem, without oﬀering concrete evidence of our claim.
Yet the main point is this: jobs are also designed; not only in the
traditional sense of design but in terms of the way the production
process is broken down into various types of task, which actively
demand or render redundant the laborers’ skills range, and foster orhinder cooperation.
The previous comments were intended to show that design has
an invisible component, namely an organizational-institutional dimension over which the designer always exercises a certain inﬂuence yet which, given the way we classify our environment in termsof objects, tends to remain hidden. Insofar as the world is divided
into object categories, and the invisible dimension acknowledged
only marginally as an external parameter, the world too is designed.
Furthermore, institutions’ resistance to change—especially given
the wealth of technological objects now under development—isalso a form of design: radiology equipment is designed for the useof nurses in radiology.
158

In the following we wish to consider whether these insights areof any use to us, or simply sad proof of the fact that the world isbadly designed.
Whenever we think about design, we must address two phases:
the phase of actual design or planning through to production; andthe consumption phase, up to and including an object’s disposal on
the trash heap, or in a museum. Let us take a look ﬁrst at the established hypothesis on each:–
On design: the objective is a functional object, whereby one
might discuss endlessly whether functionality per se is identical with beauty, or whether the designer must add beauty as
an extra.
–And on consumption: technology and technical devices areneutral; their misuse stems from people’s villainy. The Werkbund Almanach (Almanac) from 1914 featured warships as design objects while the journal Werk from April 1976 described
the cooling towers of nuclear power stations as an appealing
venture for architects.
And now, two contrary viewpoints, as a possible premise for a new
way of describing the two processes, design and consumption:–
On design: objects owe their form to the interactions inherent
to the design process.
–And on consumption: such objects in turn exert inﬂuence onsocial interaction; objects are not neutral; Tools for Conviviality³ exist (asserts Illich!), as do their opposite, objects that
impede social interaction.

3

Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality, Harper & Row, New York 1973.
159

And let us test a third hypothesis while we are at it, a hypothesis on
counter-productivity:–
Every new invention that is put to use eﬀects change, andsuch change in turn necessitates new inventions. If all the
problems that successively arise are dealt with conventionally,
namely one by one, as isolated phenomena, the outcome iscounter-productivity. Here is a brief example: a central heating system serving several apartments allegedly gave rise to
the need to monitor each individual tenant’s energy consumption. Gauges based on the evaporation of liquid were installed
and, as a result, each tenant now turns oﬀ his radiators whenever he goes out. However, each tenant also wants his apartment to be warm the minute he turns the radiators back on.
Consequently, water in the heating system is kept at such ahigh temperature that every tenant, even the most thrifty,
ultimately pays more for heating now than when heating costs
were split between tenants, without individual monitoring.
Let’s begin therefore with the design process. Here, as we observedin our opening remarks, the designer classiﬁes the world in termsof object categories rather than problem categories. This rests on
linguistic determination, for to name a problem is simultaneously
to identify the appliance that can remedy it. When I complain thatmy electric onion chopper may indeed save me a moment’s work
but then takes ten minutes to clean, what springs to mind is not somuch a return to the simple kitchen knife but a design for an appliance able to clean my onion chopper. The objective, once named,
becomes an instant remedy, and supersedes any general endeavor on
my part, to cook more eﬃciently when time is limited.
A further eﬀect of this direct link between naming and remedy
is the suppression of secondary considerations: with the exception
160

The Triumph of Good Form. Drawing: Lucius Burckhardtof the appliance to be designed, no technical or organizationalchanges should be necessary. Whatever can be integrated in existing systems, however overloaded these may be, is considered successful: a waste disposal unit built into the sink drainage, an oven161that self-cleans through pyrolysis, etc. This type of troubleshooting
is rooted in the designer’s position within policymaking bodies: his
job is to deliver ideas—but he bears zero liability.
In the late 1950s, the Ulm School of Design was the ﬁrst professional institution to recognize that industrial design is counterproductive—yet the solutions it proposed were technocratic. They
were based on a radical analysis of the desired outcome but failed
to consider that outcome in its broader context. Students in Ulm
were hence likely to submit papers that began something like this:“The exercise consists in raising ten to twenty gram portions ofsemi-solid substances from a dish circa thirty centimeters in diameter then transferring them horizontally to an open mouth, wherea movement of the upper lip relieves the supporting structure of its
load…” The result is not Charlie Chaplin’s eating machine but afork with a Modernist proﬁle.
In the meantime, of course, it has been recognized that objects
that have great symbolic value yet require only minimal inventiveness—cutlery, for example—do not fall into the design ﬁeld. Conversely, those things yet to be invented, or at least their technicalaspects, are too complex for designers. So design must broaden its
scope and embrace socio-design: a way of thinking about resolving
problems that results from coordinated changes made both to roles
and to objects. One example may be to design a kitchen so inviting,it inspires guests to help the host chop onions…
Before leaving the ﬁeld of design to consider aspects of consumption, I want to slip in a comment or two on shopping andits “hidden persuaders.”⁴ Of course, the marketing and advertising

4 Vance Packard’s book The Hidden Persuaders (David McKay Co., New York
1957) was a pioneering and prescient work that revealed how advertisers use
162

professionals who use depth psychology to sell either soap powder
or instant cake mix designed to make a mother feel she is breastfeeding the whole family, have not yet thrown in the towel. But thehype in the design ﬁeld has pretty much died down: I now buy a
new refrigerator when the old one breaks down, not simply because
I want one with rounded contours. Rearguard action continues on
the car market, where revivals are a ﬂourishing trade, and the avantgarde has already discovered the ﬂea market for other retail sectors.
The ﬂea market will be the place dwindling numbers of throwaway
consumers meet the swelling ranks of post-industrial society.
This is not to say that progress—in its positive as well as its
counter-productive guise—has come to a standstill. But the sector
in which progress is still being made is straightforward. Progress
holds sway in production for the white (oﬃcial) market but graymarket trading, moonlighting, self-suﬃciency, barter systems andinformal mutual aid are on the rise too. White trading is still scoring points also in these areas: DIY hobby products have slipped
onto the shelves among the detergent battalions. Yet these might
be ﬂeeting epiphenomena on the road to greater self-suﬃciency.
Whether we should welcome all this wholeheartedly remains uncertain: it panders to lower middle-class aspirations, and harbors athreat of social isolation; but perhaps a retrograde step or two is theprice society must pay for a springboard to new realms of experience.
With regard to usage and consumption, we wanted to point out
that objects are not neutral. Is there such a thing as evil objects?
Goods are harmful when they foster our dependence on systems

psychological methods to tap into unconscious desires in order to “persuade”
the consumer to buy promoted products.
163

that ultimately pillage our resources, or desert us. Without doubt
we are all attached to such systems, and this makes us liable toblackmail. However we can still inﬂuence the extent of our dependency. We should avoid those objects that compel us to buy moreaccessories. We should distrust media that provide a one-way ﬂow
of information, even though we can no longer do without them.
We should exercise restraint in buying and using any goods thatisolate us. The car is a major case in point, especially as it tends also
to foster inconsiderate behavior in its user.
The car has destroyed not only our cities but also our society.
One can commission as much research as one likes as to why juvenile delinquency is on the rise, why more women are attacked, why
districts are becoming derelict, or slums, or no-go areas by night. As
long as the defense against motorized crime is a motorized police
force, as long as the pedestrian is advised to use his car, the solution
can be named without any need for further research: motorization
based on private car ownership has abandoned the non-motorized
populace to greater insecurity, and to an increasingly uncompetitive
mass transit system.
This leads to our last remark: on counter-productivity. We already mentioned the example of monitoring heating costs. That is
only a minor aspect of the outrageous counter-productivity of thecentral heating system, every failure of which has been countered bya new remedy that subsequently proved to be a failure, to the point
where we now use our electronically controlled, overheated and, in
terms of air hygiene, unhealthy central heating system in devastatingly wasteful fashion, as a boiler; and the central heating system
is being superseded now by an even greater evil, air conditioning.
Counter-productivity, as we have said, arises when inventions areused in such a way as to cause a break in the overall system, a breakthat is patched up in turn by a further isolated invention. The sum
164

of these successor-inventions equals the counter-productivity of theoverall system.
To return to the car: since the average inner-city speed for cars
has been lowered to match that of cyclists, or pedestrians even, automobile manufacturers are pursuing research into the automobile’s
successor. And what are they developing? A car ﬁtted with an additional gadget that allows the car to be steered to its destination by
an electronic short-wave remote control system, whenever it enters
the city limits. Or to return to the vacuum cleaner: since the public has grown aware that vacuum cleaners are all the more damaging the more eﬃcient they are, i.e. the more powerfully they canwhizz bacteria through the ﬁlter, the industry is looking at a successor gadget—and guess what that may be? You’re right: a vacuum
cleaner with a built-in bacteria ﬁlter!
Invisible design. Today, this implies conventional design that is
oblivious to its social impact. Yet it might also imply the design oftomorrow—design that consciously takes into account the invisible
overall system comprised of objects and interpersonal relationships.

165

Jesko Fezer · Martin Schmitz (Eds.)

Lucius Burckhardt Writings.
Rethinking Man-madeEnvironments
Politics, Landscape & Design

SpringerWienNewYork

EditorsJesko Fezer, D–Berlin/Hamburg
design.hfbk-hamburg.de
Martin Schmitz, D–Berlin
martin-schmitz.de
lucius-burckhardt.org
We thank Annemarie Burckhardt (1930-2012)
for her many suggestions and steadfast support.

This work is subject to copyright.
All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, speciﬁcallythose of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, broadcasting, reproduction by photocopying machines or similar means, and storage in data banks.
Product liability: The publisher can give no guarantee for the information contained in thisbook. The use of registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in
the absence of a speciﬁc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective
laws and regulations and are therefore free for general use.
© 2012 Springer-Verlag/Wien
SpringerWienNewYork is a part of Springer Science+Business Media
springer.at
Coverphoto: Lucius Burckhardt painted a ﬂy on a grape, in emulation of the artist Apelles.
Is a realistic simulation of nature the very best art can do? Photo: Annemarie Burckhardt
Cover Design: Jesko Fezer, Martin Schmitz, Ekke Wolf
Typesetting: Ekke Wolf, A–Vienna, www.typic.atTranslated from the German: Jill Denton, D–Berlin
Proof reading: Andreas Müller, D–Berlin
Printed on acid-free and chlorine-free bleached paper
SPIN: 86094037
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012944424
With 32 ﬁgures
ISBN 978-3-7091-1256-4 SpringerWienNewYork

Content
Preface: The Work of Lucius Burckhardt

7

Urban Planning and Democracy (1957)

27

Ulm Anno 5. The Curriculum of the Ulm
School of Design (1960)

35

Building—A Process with No Obligations to Heritage
Preservation (1967)44

On the Value and Meaning of Urban Utopias (1968)

63

From Design Academicism to the Treatmentof Wicked Problems (1973)

77

Who Plans the Planning? (1974)

85

Family and Home—Two Adaptable Systems (1975)

102

Urban Design and Its Signiﬁcance for Residents (1975)

115

Gardening—An Art and A Necessity (1977)

123

Why Is Landscape Beautiful? (1979)

133

On the Design of Everyday Life (1979)

142

Design Is Invisible (1980)

153

Dirt (1980)

166

What Is Livability? On Quantiﬁable and Invisible Needs (1981)

170

The Night Is Man-made (1982)

179

Architecture—An Art or A Science? (1983)

189

A Critique of the Art of Gardening (1983)

195

Fake: The Real Thing (1987)

204

Aesthetics and Ecology (1990)

212

A Walk in Second Nature (1992)

226

The Sermon (1994)

232

Strollological Observations on Perception of the Environment
and the Tasks Facing Our Generation (1996)

239

Wasteland As Context. Is There Any Such Thing
As The Postmodern Landscape? (1998)

249

On Movement and Vantage Points—the Strollologist’sExperience (1999)

264

Biography

281

Bibliography

283

Index

287