Peter Behrens (1868-1940)
Behrens, an architect from Hamburg, was a designer who played a pivotal role in the transition from 19th century decorative art to the simple functional designs of the first half of the 20th century i.e. from Art nouveau to Bauhaus and beyond. His importance in design lies as much in the fact that he was teacher to three of the most influential people in the modern world: Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier.
In the field of typography, he mixed the traditional German blackletter (or textur) type with Jugendstil illustrative work. In 1900, he designed a book set entirely in sans serif, which was a major break with tradition and so started the evolution in German from old blackletter to sans serif.
In 1907, he was commissioned to design the entire visual identity of AEG, one of the largest manufacturers in the world. Thus Beyrens helped to found the weird new world of corporate identity.
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