Wirrwarr

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Jürgen Mayer H.

Text by Philip Ursprung

Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, Germany, 2011, German and English

Nonfiction, Architecture; Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History; Nonfiction, Digital Media Design

16.2 x 15.5 x 1.7 inches, hardcover, limited, signed edition, 216 pages, 100 illustrations

ISBN: 9783775727792

Suggested Retail Price: $300.00

From the Publisher. Jürgen Mayer H. (b. 1965, Stuttgart) combines architecture, product and graphic design, and art in his work. Numbers and dates encrypted into patterns are recurring elements in his architecture, drawings, and objects. He is particularly interested in the data protection and preprinted carbonless forms used by banks to encrypt pass codes or PINs in letters to customers. Data protection patterns guarantee that no one but the recipient can see the information. His research led Mayer H. to the oldest sources of these forms, which date back to 1913, and over the years he has amassed a collection of around 400 different patterns. This large-format size publication features one hundred different preprints, which form the basis for many of his buildings, drawings, sculptures, and design objects.

On 2 book lists

Jürgen Mayer H.

On list of Books by Jürgen Mayer H.

Not so much a book, but more a collection of what is a text that says nothing but means a lot (to me).

Phil Patton

On Phil Patton’s Notable Books of 2011 list

For over a decade, the Berlin architect Jürgen Mayer H. has collected computer-generated security patterns, numbers, envelope linings, and so on. He has published a limited-edition book of them under the title Wirrwarr, a German word meaning chaos and confusion, with onomatopoetic overtones of buzz.

These would have been an appropriate submission for our Typologies class at the School of Visual Arts Design Criticism program. They are the sort of omni-present and overlooked form of design we are interested in.

The patterns serve as inspiration to his architecture, as, for example, in the facade of the Hasselt Court of Justice, completed this year in Hasselt, Belgium. Some of the images will be on display at the Art Institute of Chicago through January 22, 2012.

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