A conversation with Jürgen Engel

Jürgen Engel leads one of the big German ar­chi­tec­tural firms. With around 300 em­ploy­ees at the head­quar­ters in Frank­furt and in the many offices through­out Germany and in­ter­na­tion­ally, KSP Jürgen Engel Ar­chitek­ten is just as adept at build­ing high-rises in Frank­furt as it is a mosque in Algiers or the Na­tional Library of China in Beijing. But Jürgen Engel even takes on small-scale pro­jects, which is ev­i­denced by his design for the new FSB 1271 door handle col­lec­tion. FSB spoke with him about crown­ing fin­ishes, his love of detail and what mo­ti­vates him as a de­signer.

So, Mr Engel, is de­sign­ing a door handle an ar­chi­tect’s dream?

We take a holis­tic ap­proach to design, from urban de­vel­op­ment, ar­chi­tec­ture and product design to the brand­ing of com­pa­nies. This in­cludes a recog­ni­tion and respect for ma­te­ri­als, like the raw exposed con­crete of the doc­u­men­ta­tion centre in Bergen-Belsen or the aes­thet­ics of the in­te­rior of the El­e­ments Studios, but it also in­cludes con­struc­tive de­tailed so­lu­tions like the in­no­v­a­tive folded ceiling in the Wes­t­end­Duo project in Frank­furt. What many con­sider a non­de­script detail like a door handle, however, is one of the most im­por­tant func­tional el­e­ments in a build­ing. Hardly any­thing is used more fre­quently and ac­tu­ally held in the hand. For us as ar­chi­tects, the door handle is the crowing finish of a holis­tic design of a build­ing.

What made you design a door handle?

Our touch memory is just as strong as our memory for smell. Anyone who takes in a build­ing with all their senses knows the im­por­tance of door and window handles. You notice im­me­di­ately whether they were de­signed with func­tion­al­ity or aes­thet­ics in mind. Bring­ing both of these el­e­ments into harmony is the chal­lenge that mo­ti­vates us as de­sign­ers. And part of that as well is the aim of giving all doors and, of course, the windows a uniform finish. All of them have special re­quire­ments that should not be no­tice­able in the design and during their use.

How did you end up working with FSB?

We have been using FSB prod­ucts in our pro­jects for decades. We have the same quality stan­dards as FSB. That’s why our co­op­er­a­tion has always been defined by a mutual ap­pre­ci­a­tion. We had been wanting to work on de­sign­ing a handle col­lec­tion for some time and we are very happy to have finally done a joint project with FSB.

:How was it, working with FSB?

Col­lab­o­rat­ing with ar­chi­tects is an FSB tra­di­tion. But for us as well, de­vel­op­ing prod­ucts with man­u­fac­tur­ers is an es­sen­tial part of our work. From the start we noticed that both sides have enor­mous ex­pe­ri­ence in product design.

How much did your design for the FSB 1271 have to do with your ex­pe­ri­ence from day-to-day ar­chi­tec­tural work?

Our own project port­fo­lio with high-rises, large office build­ings and re­search in­sti­tu­tions, as well as res­i­den­tial and cul­tural build­ings, pre­sents a vast range of dif­fer­ent re­quire­ments for a com­po­nent like a door handle. We are con­stantly running into the problem of our pre­ferred handle col­lec­tions not meeting all of the design and legal con­struc­tion re­quire­ments for a project, forcing us to use prod­ucts from mul­ti­ple col­lec­tions. Nar­row-stile door handles with a premium look and a uniform design across all doors and windows are re­quired, es­pe­cially in rep­re­sen­ta­tive areas of office build­ings. Our primary concern was to design a handle col­lec­tion that would meet this design re­quire­ment.

What is special about the design of the nar­row-stile door handle in the col­lec­tion?

We ap­proached the design with a clear idea of what we wanted. The shape of the FSB 1271 is op­ti­mised to meet all tech­ni­cal re­quire­ments; it com­bines pre­ci­sion with a pleas­ant, com­fort­able grip and allows for a uniform style with iden­ti­cal geom­e­try to be used through­out the build­ing in the form of door handles, nar­row-stile door handles and window handles. The nar­row-stile door handle does not have the typical crank or per­ceiv­able offset. This is where the in­no­v­a­tive spirit of de­signer–philoso­pher Ludwig Wittgen­stein came in, in­spir­ing us to develop the crank­ing as a slight adap­ta­tion of the tran­si­tion radius between the shanks and grip section.

How deep did you get into the subject, such as the history of handle designs and the man­u­fac­tur­ing process?

We looked at door handles since the start of modern times. The search for new forms was thrilling. The ear­li­est ref­er­ence we used was the door handles of Mies van der Rohe, es­pe­cially the handle for the Farnsworth House (1949–51), with its el­e­gantly curved, slim lines. The re­duc­tion of visible parts and the ap­pear­ance of seeming to be made all in one piece were also sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the design of the FSB 1271 series. In col­lab­o­rat­ing with FSB we had the op­por­tu­nity to learn so much about the man­u­fac­tur­ing and surface treat­ment processes. We were able to see for our­selves on site the im­pres­sive crafts­man­ship in the quality pro­duced in Brakel in eastern West­phalia. It allowed us to design the handle col­lec­tion from the ground up and go down our own paths de­sign-wise.

The shape of the handle col­lec­tion is op­ti­mised in order to protect re­sources. What does that mean exactly?

You have to use as little ma­te­r­ial as pos­si­ble in order to min­imise the con­sump­tion of re­sources. But a door handle not only have to meet stan­dards but also feel good even in larger hands. With its flat curving front face and gently rounded area at the back, the FSB 1271 blends pre­ci­sion and comfort in equal measure. Despite the slim form, the handle takes up a pleas­ant amount of space in the hand, making it safely suit­able for opening even large, heavy doors.

Have you de­signed other ar­chi­tec­tural prod­ucts as well?

Our holis­tic ap­proach as de­sign­ers starts with urban de­vel­op­ment and goes right up to de­tailed so­lu­tions for in­te­rior design. The FSB 1271 door handle col­lec­tion is just one of a range of designs, in­clud­ing various light­ing fix­tures, fur­ni­ture, bath­room fit­tings and even a carpet with two weave pat­terns.

Which scale of project do you prefer: big urban con­struc­tion or door handles?

As an ar­chi­tect who follows this type of design ap­proach, I enjoy setting myself new design chal­lenges above all and ex­pand­ing my ex­per­tise. A door handle in par­tic­u­lar is a special chal­lenge, both tech­ni­cally and aes­thet­i­cally. My love of detail is not limited to one spe­cific scale of project, though. Even in large-scale urban con­struc­tion, we develop spe­cific de­tailed so­lu­tions within the re­quire­ments which are func­tional, durable and also aes­thet­i­cally high quality.