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What did your father do?
My grandfather, Rudolf Schneider, was the founding partner of the Blendax-Werke in Mainz. The company was finished after the war so my grandfather decided to send my father to Peru (which was a popular destination for people emigrating from Germany at the time) in order to build a new life there. Nobody knew how things were going to go in Germany. So that's what he did and he set up a company and a factory there - producing toothpaste and toothbrushes just as Blendax had done. Eventually, things settled down in Germany. Reconstruction began and Blendax got back on its feet again.
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Design was still quite an exotic subject at the time. Why did you decide to study it?
It was really all thanks to Herbert Ohl, who was head of the Hochschule für Gestaltung [design school] in Ulm.
He was a friend of the managing director of Blendax. Just at the time that I was trying to decide what kind of career I was going to pursue, he gave me an insight into the role of the designer. It had been intended that I would follow in my father's footsteps and join the family business. But I was young and really couldn't see myself spending the rest of my life as a business controller shut away in an office somewhere. Nor did I think that I would be able to live up to the demands of that kind of job - especially as I had found that my interests and abilities were more focused on the creative side.
I therefore decided to apply for a place at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm. But they recommended that I start by spending a practical training term at the Folkwangschule für Gestaltung [Folkwang design school] in Essen because you had to have completed an internship or a practical training term before you could be accepted in Ulm. So that's what I did. I applied for a place in Essen, took the entrance exam and passed it.
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The Folkwangschule in Essen is also very highly regarded.
Absolutely - and then the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm closed during my second term in Essen. But even if it had continued to exist, I don't think I would have left Essen. I felt at home there and the Folkwangschule already had an excellent reputation. I was happy to stay there and I certainly never regretted my decision.
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Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us.
Peter Schneider was talking to Klaus Bernd Polster.
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