The Art of Impossible
The Art of Impossible
The Art of Impossible: The Bang & Olufsen Design Story
2015, hardcover, 240 pages, 30.5 x 25.4 cm, written and photographed by Alastair Philip Wiper. Published by Thames & Hudson.
An exploration of the oldest consumer electronics company in the world. Alastair Philip Wiper spent two years scouring the basements of their headquarters in Struer, Denmark, digging out old prototypes of classic designs, talking to designers old and new, visiting the R&D and production facilities and much more.
Graphic design by Studio Claus Due.
Founded in 1925 by Danish innovators Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen, Bang & Olufsen is one of the world’s foremost consumer electronics companies. For nearly a century, their audio products, television sets, and telephones have broken the established rules and conventions of product design, dictating visual trends and altering irrevocably the appearance of our homes in the process.
This book delves into the stories of each breakthrough, iconic Bang & Olufsen design. Overviews of both the materials and the manufacturing processes used for each Bang & Olufsen model are complemented by profiles on the designers behind each innovative creation. Throughout, the company’s underlying philosophy remains unwavering: design must always serve a purpose. Featuring an extensive archive of sketches and prototypes, 300 specially commissioned photographs of individual products in various interior settings, as well as an exclusive insight into the models that never found their way onto the market, this is the definitive publication on a company whose design inventions are in a league of their own.
'The book embodies and reflects the design principles of Bang & Olufsen, referencing their singular aesthetic and leaving ample space for the work to speak alongside writing on their ideas and processes' - It’s Nice That