Piet Hein

The Danish Piet Hein (1905-1996) is a multifaceted figure who defies easy definition: mathematician, poet, scientist, philosopher and also designer, a modern incarnation of the classic attitude of Renaissance intellectuals: like a new Leonardo da Vinci he always loved to transform his theoretical discoveries into real objects, as he believed that there was no clear distinction between science and artistic creation. A direct descendant of the legendary 17th-century Dutch navigator Piet Pieterszoon Hein, Hein had a rich and rambling education, following courses of study never completed at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen and the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. One of his most remembered contributions to both geometry and design is the discovery of the Superellipse shape, a new geometric figure that combines the ellipse with the rectangle, which he invented in 1959 when he was invited to provide urban planning consultancy for the new Sergels Torg square in Stockholm. Over the following decade he used the Superellipse in various fields, for example by making it the top of the famous Superellipse table (1966) designed for Fritz Hansen in collaboration with Bruno Mathsson, or by extending it in three-dimensional form to create the ideal shape of the Superegg (the protagonist, for example, of a famous series of metal objects produced by George Jensen). Today, many of his creations are re-proposed by the eponymous brand Piet Hein, as well as appearing in the catalogues of brands such as Fritz Hansen and Sibast. A personal friend of geniuses such as Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein, he has received numerous awards around the world for his scientific work, including the Alexander Graham Bell Prize in 1968 and an honorary doctorate from Yale University in 1992. In Scandinavian countries, however, he is much loved and remembered also and above all for his activity as a poet, which began in the 1930s with the publication in the newspaper Politeken of short witty epigrams that took the name of “gruks” (in English “grooks”, according to a form chosen by Hein himself who personally took care of their translation), all signed with the pseudonym of Kumbel Kumbell. One of them, ironic and ferocious, can be considered a true manifesto of his vision of design: “Most design is sheer disaster / hiding what one doesn’t master. / True design asks one thing of us / to uncover what it covers”.