FSB has republished the book ‘Begreifbare Baukunst’ (‘Tangible architecture’)

FSB book ‘Begreifbare Baukunst. Die Bedeutung von Türgriffen in der Architektur’ (‘Tangible architecture. The importance of door handles in architecture’) was first published in 2009 and has since gone out of print. A new extended edition has recently been released, along with its English translation. The catalogue for the visiting exhibition of the same name takes a closer look at a small, yet never insignificant architectural details: the door handle.

It shows the full versatile range of this object, with a selection of important historical and contemporary door handles in the context of the architecture for which they were designed.

The door handle is usually the first thing we touch when we enter a building or room. Through its design and placement, it can give us a first glimpse at the architectural concept behind the building.

Is it a tool or decoration, is it extravagant or understated, does it make a celebration out of opening the door or is it a subordinate element? How does it feel in the hand? Is it heavy, light, ergonomic or cumbersome? Does it invite us to grab it and enter or does it create distance?

The book addresses a number of other questions of this type, demonstrating that a door handle is not just a household object, but ‘architecture in miniature’, as Bettina Rudhof puts it in her introduction to the catalogue.
This treatise on door handles was triggered by a question from Berlin architect Paul Kahlfeldt to FSB several years ago. He was looking for Schinkel’s historic fittings for his reconstruction of Schinkel's Building Academy in Berlin.

Joint research on the handle brought about the idea to make an exhibition dedicated to door handles. The accompanying catalogue might not be able to offer the tangible experience of the exhibition, but it does present a finely curated selection of handles. It invites readers to travel through the history of the door handle, starting with historical examples by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Alvar Aalto, and continuing on to show contemporary examples.

On the way, the reader takes short detours throughout to learn about the possibilities that metal offers as a material and discover what the disappearance of Gropius Bauhaus handles is about. The reader also learns about designer Otl Aicher’s four-point guide to grip: ‘The thumb always looks for a direction’.

The book presents the inexhaustible versatility of the shapes and designs that can be packed into the small object.

It shows, for example, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous pared-down door handle for his palace in Kundmanngasse in Vienna, Jasper Morrison's functional classic, the FSB 1144 door handle, the colourful post-modern redesign of the Gropius handle by Alessandro Mendini, and much more.

Even just flipping through the book to discover the reference projects and reinterpretations gives readers new insight and shows that the repertoire of shapes and form in door handle design still has space for more ideas.