Dieter Rams and Teenage Engineering: A Cultural Jump
Dieter Rams and Teenage Engineering: A Cultural Jump 60 years separate Braun’s “Snow White’s Coffin” from Teenage Engineering’s OP-1. Where Rams designed for kitchen counters, Jesper Kouthoofd designed for backpacks; where the SK4 Phonosuper required mains power, the EP-133 runs on batteries. The shift traces how functionalism adapted to mobility. Rams’ 10 principles assumed stationary contexts — objects that lived in homes. Teenage Engineering applied those same principles to objects that travel: reduce size, reduce power, reduce everything non-essential until only function remains. ...