German design is the body of furniture, decorative art, architecture and industrial design produced in Germany, which has had an influence on the modern world out of proportion to its size. It ranges from the elegant domestic furniture of the Biedermeier period to the functional, machine-age aesthetics of the twentieth century.
In the eighteenth century Meissen led European porcelain, while German cabinetmakers such as David Roentgen produced marquetry furniture of extraordinary quality. The Biedermeier style of the early nineteenth century favoured simple, comfortable furniture in pale fruitwoods, and Jugendstil, the German form of Art Nouveau, flourished around 1900, with metalwork by firms such as WMF. The Deutscher Werkbund, founded in 1907, sought to unite art and industry, and Peter Behrens's work for the electrical company AEG is often regarded as an early example of corporate design. In 1919 Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus, whose teachers and students promoted tubular steel furniture, geometric lighting and functional forms that shaped modernism worldwide. After the Second World War, designers such as Dieter Rams at Braun continued the tradition of clarity and restraint. German design pieces are valued for quality of manufacture and integrity of form.
