Luigi Colani Biography
Luigi Colani (Berlin, 2 August 1928) is a German designer, among the most discussed of the twentieth century for his inspiration and genius. In 1946, Lutz Colani enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, where he attended sculpture and painting courses. Two years later he enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he studied aerodynamics. At the beginning of 1953 he moved to California, to the aeronautical manufacturer Douglas Aircraft Company, where he participated in research on new materials, already as manager. At the end of the same year, Lutz Colani returned to France, where he began to devote himself to automotive design, placing particular emphasis on the aerodynamic aspect of an automotive body. In 1954, in Geneva, he received the Golden Rose award for his work in the field of automotive aerodynamics. During the fifties, Lutz Colani developed his creative language, made of often exaggerated roundness, which evoke the dynamism and vitality of the object. Colani has always proclaimed himself a supporter of rounded lines. This stylistic trend, which Colani made his own, also received a name: bio-design. In 1957 there was the aforementioned name change: from that moment on he would be called Luigi Colani. In the same year, Colani created a car based on the Alfa Romeo Giulietta, later called the Colani Alfa Romeo. This sports car was the first to finish a lap at the Nürburgring circuit in less than 10 minutes. In 1959, Luigi Colani created a work based on the then newborn BMW 700. The following decade saw Luigi Colani always dedicating himself assiduously to automotive design, but the German designer began to include other commonly used objects in his field of interests , like some home furniture. In 1968, having gathered a team of designers, Luigi Colani founded his own design studio in Westphalia and began working on the potential of plastic materials for the construction of cars, home furniture and also equipment such as cameras.
