Hans Hilfiker
Hans Hilfiker ( born September 15, 1901 in Zurich, † March 2, 1993 in Gordevio TI) was a Swiss electrical engineer and designer.
His most famous work is the Swiss railway clock. This clock designed in 1944 he added later with his self-developed second hand with the characteristic red trowel. Less well known but just as important is his work on the development of the Swiss standard kitchen while working for the Therma AG in the 1960s. Hilfiker looked only at the 40 as a designer and has developed its own design philosophy as an engineer without the backing of the art. He is considered one of the pioneers of the Swiss industrial design.
Life
After attending primary and secondary school Hans Hilfiker completed an apprenticeship as a precision mechanic. He studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich electrical and telecommunications to diploma.
From 1925 he worked for the Albis works (Siemens) in Zurich, where he traveled in 1926 to Argentina. 1927 to 1928 he worked for Siemens as a technical advisor to the Signal Corps of the Argentine Army. He built workshops and mobile telephone exchanges and formed telecommunications officers from technical. In 1929, he participated as a senior engineer on the construction of the telephone line Buenos Aires - Rosario by the river and marsh area of the river Paraná. From 1930 he was planning a submarine cable by the delta of the Río de la Plata from Buenos Aires to Montevideo ( Uruguay). Siemens trained him five months in Berlin, so that he could take a later founding operating company in Argentina. However the plans were dashed in 1931 and Hilfiker returned to Switzerland.
From 1932 to 1958 he worked for the Swiss Federal Railways ( SBB) as an engineer at the Building Department III, from 1944 as Deputy Head of the Construction Department and Chief of the services fixed electrical installations. For the SBB, he developed next to the station clock, among others, a gantry crane for loading of heavy goods from road to rail, the platform roof for the station Winterthur - Groat, a roadmap projector for the Zurich train station and a now historic listed buildings occupied for the catenary maintenance in the " carbon triangle " of the station Zurich.
From 1958 to 1968 he was a Director at the Therma AG in Schwanden in the canton of Glarus active (since 1978 Electrolux ). He developed a completely new kitchen for Therma program which consisted of combinable modules. Until then, Therma -produced single standalone devices. Through this system kitchens, he laid the foundations for your own Swiss cuisine Standard SINK ( Swiss Industrial Commission for the normalization of the kitchen), which differs from the European ( width 55 cm instead of 60 ). A prototype of this standard was shown at the EXPO 1964 in Lausanne. Hilfiker sat through an actual corporate design for Therma and structured for new fitted kitchens manufacturing processes in order.
1968-1980 Hilfiker worked as a design consultant at the company Devico design in Gockhausen in Zurich.
In addition, Hilfiker taught from 1974 to 1980 at the Technical Windisch.
Works (selection)
Information from: Hans Hilfiker, engineer and designer. Number of Swiss Design Pioneers 1, Guideline 351, the Museum of Design Zurich, Zurich 1984.