FSB 1242 by John Pawson

An evergreen now also in Aluminium and Stainless Steel

FSB 1242
Design: John Pawson

FSB 1242
Door lever in Pol­ished Silver An­odised Alu­minium

FSB 1242
Door lever in Stain­less Steel Brushed Satin Matt

FSB 1242
Door lever in Dark Pati­nated Waxed Bronze

FSB 1242
Plug-in handle for doors in Pol­ished Silver An­odised Alu­minium

FSB 1242
Plug-in handle for doors in Stain­less Steel Brushed Satin Matt

FSB 1242
Plug-in handle for doors in Dark Pati­nated Waxed Bronze

How de­light­fully this handle nestles in the hand is im­me­di­ately plain to see from the grip’s upright oval styling. The British ar­chi­tect John Pawson demon­strates with his door lever FSB 1242 that a design idea that has un­der­gone myriad vari­a­tions over the past 90-odd years can be com­pellingly op­ti­mised to meet the demands of the modern world

“Reich Shape” re­vi­talised

John Pawson draws on the design vo­cab­u­lary of one of the most fa­mil­iar Mod­ernist door levers – the “Reich Shape” lever handle by Hans Poelzig – whilst at the same time re­vi­tal­is­ing it. This oldest an­tecedent of FSB 1242 was con­ceived in 1930 and fitted in, amongst other build­ings, Broad­cast­ing House in Berlin and the IG Farben office block. The latter, the “Poelzig Build­ing” in Frank­furt am Main, now houses part of the city’s Johann Wolf­gang Goethe Uni­ver­sity.

Upright oval shape

Par­tic­u­larly strik­ing about Hans Poelzig’s handle was the upright oval shape of its grip, which orig­i­nally per­formed a sharp “L” turn into the handle’s neck and rose. This proved to be some­what im­prac­ti­ca­ble from a very early stage and would not have con­formed to mod­ern-day stan­dards. John Pawson ably took account of the latest nor­ma­tive re­quire­ments in his re-in­ter­pre­ta­tion, specif­i­cally those re­lat­ing to doors and windows, without falling into the trap of pro­duc­ing a purely func­tional design. He went on to expand FSB 1242 into a fully-fledged product range – one that in­cludes a variant suit­able for emer­gency exits as set down in DIN EN 179, in-line and cranked models for nar­row-frame doors and a window handle.

Now also avail­able in Alu­minium and Stain­less Steel

FSB 1242 was orig­i­nally de­vel­oped for a former telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions bunker con­verted to a com­mis­sion by the Berlin-based art col­lec­tor Désiré Feuerle. John Pawson has since also in­cluded the handle in various other pro­jects planned in his London prac­tice.

His handle col­lec­tion, orig­i­nally sup­plied in Bronze, is now also avail­able in Alu­minium and Stain­less Steel.