Fifty years of Porsche design to be celebrated in new exhibition
The Porsche Museum in Stuttgart is honouring Porsche Design’s fiftieth anniversary with a special exhibition. Running until 10th July 2022, the event affords visitors the opportunity to immerse themselves in the most important, interesting and extraordinary Porsche Design products, with a wealth of interactive presentations available to help visitors understand how the prestigious brand became the success it is today.
Ferdinand Alexander ‘Butzi’ Porsche, the celebrated designer of the 911 and the eldest son of Ferry Porsche, founded Porsche Design together with his younger brother, Hans-Peter, in 1972. Porsche Design has long since become an internationally renowned lifestyle brand, known for functional and durable products with a purist aesthetic. Alongside displays exploring the life and work of Butzi, his design philosophy and his great creative influence over Porsche as a whole, key artefacts from five decades of Porsche Design will be explored in detail.
Butzi’s objective was to take Porsche design principles beyond the realm of the automobile. He outlined his design standard as “the pursuit of the perfect symbiosis of form and function” and succeeded in impressive fashion with Porsche Design’s very first product, the Chronograph 1 wristwatch, a precision timepiece produced as a gift to Porsche employees. Drawing inspiration from the anti-glare displays in the cockpit of a sports car, the Chronograph 1 — a limited-volume production piece manufactured in 1972 and therefore representing the very beginnings of Porsche Design — features a matte black dial, a red stopwatch second hand, luminescent hour indices and high-quality anti-glare crystal for optimum readability.
Revolutionary at the time, the Chronograph 1 is today regarded as a perfect combination of design know-how and engineering excellence. It became a fashion and technical icon, even making an appearance on the wrist of Tom Cruise in the blockbuster film, Top Gun. And, just like the Cruise flick, Butzi’s wristwatch spawned a sequel: the lengthily named (and strictly limited) Chronograph 1 911 Edition 50Y Porsche Design Edition, released in time for the Porsche Museum’s celebratory exhibition this month.
Other Porsche Design classics — some of which have won multiple awards — on display for visitors to experience digitally and interactively include the P`8478 aviator sunglasses, the P`9521 mobile telephone, the P`3613 tobacco pipe and the Monobloc Actuator watch series, featuring fully integrated stopwatch pushers. The anniversary exhibition also includes style-defining Porsche sports cars from Butzi’s drawing board, as well as those loaned to the Porsche Museum from his private collection. These include a 904 Carrera GTS (known to be his favourite Porsche) and a 993 Speedster. A gloss black 911 S 2.4 Targa from Porsche Design’s founding year and recently restored by Porsche Classic as part of the Porsche Museum’s special request programme will also be on display, as will a new 992 special edition labelled as the 911 Edition 50Y Porsche Design. Yes, the new wristwatch is a promotional tie-in for the semi-open-top 911.
With locations in Zell am See, Berlin, Ludwigsburg, Los Angeles and Shanghai, Porsche Design also caters for an ever increasing number of international third-party clients, designing first-class consumer goods, household appliances and industrial products for brands including Elan, KEF, LaCie, Morita and Japanese electronics giant, Panasonic.
The Porsche Museum is open each week from Tuesday to Sunday, 9am to 6pm. For ticket prices and booking information, visit porsche.com.
STYLE-DEFINING PORSCHE SPORTS CARS FROM BUTZI’S DRAWING BOARD