Each year, the Federal Office of Culture presents the Grand Prix Design to honour the work of designers or established design firms that have made a major contribution to the reputation of Swiss design on a national or international level. The prize is part of a package of measures by which the Federal Office of Culture actively fosters, supports and recognises the Swiss design scene.

Winners of the Grands Prix Design 2013
This year, the Federal Design Commission has selected three designers and partnerships as winners of the Grand Prix Design. They will each receive prize money of CHF 40,000.

Martin Leuthold, 1952
Creative Director, Jakob Schlaepfer Textiles, St. Gallen

In 1973, after an apprenticeship as an embroidery designer, Martin Leuthold joined Jakob Schlaepfer – one of the world’s leading companies manufacturing innovative textiles for haute couture, prêt-à-porter and interior decoration – as a textile designer. Since 1989 he has been a member of the management and director of the firm’s creative division, where part of his work involves developing numerous new production processes. Jakob Schlaepfer has launched the careers of generations of young textile and fashion designers for whom it offers ideal, laboratory-like conditions, with Martin Leuthold acting as a peerless mentor and promoter of their talents. His long experience and openness to innovations are key to ensuring that Jakob Schlaepfer remains competitive in a market that is undergoing major change, and continues to set the creative agenda.

In Martin Leuthold, the Swiss Confederation is honouring a key figure in the Swiss textile industry who successfully combines mentoring the designers of the future with innovativeness and international renown.

Trix and Robert Haussmann, 1933 and 1931
Architects, interior designers and product designers, Zurich

An interior designer by training, Robert Haussmann teamed up in 1967 with the architect Trix Haussmann (née Högl) to found the “Allgemeine Entwurfsanstalt” in Zurich as a planning, interior and product design partnership. Their spectrum extended from small utility items through constructions and conversions to full-scale urban planning. Their designs for manufacturers such as Röthlisberger, de Sede, Wogg and Knoll have become classics of their kind. But they are equally well known for celebrated interior design projects such as the Kronenhalle Bar (Robert Haussmann, 1965) and the underground shopping precinct at Zurich’s main station. Their design practice is coupled with an interest in critical theory, as exemplified in their Lehrstücke – ironic furniture objects from the 1980s.

The Swiss Confederation is honouring Trix and Robert Haussmann for their substantial contribution to Swiss design and architectural history. Their dedicated and thoughtful analysis of aesthetic conventions was ahead of its time, and deserves to be rediscovered today.

Armin Hofmann, 1920
Graphic designer and educator, Lucerne

After training as a graphic artist and lithographer, Armin Hofmann worked as a lithographer and designer in various studios. In 1947 he began teaching the advanced graphics course at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule (later the School of Design) in Basel, where he developed a teaching method for the art and design professions that attained widespread recognition. In 1967 he was appointed director of the advanced graphics course, while from the mid-1950s he lectured in the US, first at the Philadelphia College of Art and later at Yale University, where he taught regularly until 1991, and in India (National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad). His Graphic Design Manual (first published by Niggli Verlag in 1965) has become the standard work on the subject. Hofmann’s iconic posters for Basel’s cultural institutions including the Stadttheater, the Kunsthalle and the Museum of Design have made a key contribution to the internationally recognised Swiss Style. His designs also include logos, books, colour concepts, orientation systems and art for public spaces.

In Armin Hofmann, the Swiss Confederation is honouring one of the dominant figures in Swiss graphic design as well as a teacher and lecturer who has exerted a lasting influence on generations of graphic designers in Switzerland and abroad.

Media pack and visual material
Comprehensive information and visual materials on the winners of the Grands Prix Design can be found at: www.swissdesignawards.ch .

Press images can be downloaded from our website using a password: http://www.bak.admin.ch/aktuelles/medieninformation/04571/index.html?lang=en

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Exhibition @ Design Miami
Tuesday 11 June to Sunday 16 June 2013, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Federal Office of Culture awards the Grands Prix Design 2013