FRITZ KAHN MAN MACHINE

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February 16, 2013

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

A large-formate image taken from the publication “Der Mensch gesund und krank” by Dr. Fritz Kahn (1939) was added to an interview of the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung with economist Philip Mirowski. Its original caption reads “Vitamin D: its mode of action and typical deficiency symptoms”. The functional disorder depicted in the image stands as a visual symbol for the aftermaths of the international financial crisis which Mirowski describes in the interview.




October 10, 2012

The Times of Israel

In his detailed article on Fritz Kahn, Graham Lawson writes about “an innovator who merged medicine with the industrial age” whose “influence on graphic design and art is still apparent”. Lawson concludes: “For an influential but long-neglected thinker, Kahn’s return, however modest, represents part of his well-deserved due”.
The Times of Israel (full article)




July 19 – October 16, 2012

Wellcome Collection

“Superhuman”, an exhibition of the Wellcome Collection in London, takes a broad and playful look at our obsession with being the best we can be. Items on display range from works of art and science to objects of utility like an ancient Egyptian prosthetic toe, a Victorian dildo, and the Spanish version of Fritz Kahn’s poster “Man as Industrial Palace“.
Wellcome Collection




July 18 – September 30, 2012

New Museum

The exhibition “Ghosts in the Machine” in the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, surveys the constantly shifting relationship between humans, machines and art. Occupying the three main galleries of the museum, the exhibition presents the dreams and nightmares of technolgy as expressed by over seventy artists, writers, and visionaries – among them Fritz Kahn’s poster “Man as Industrial Palace” in the original German version of 1926.
New Museum




March 17, 2012

Jornadas Cantianas

Uta and Thilo von Debschitz presented their book project “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” on March 17, 2012 at the two-day Jornadas Cantianas conference in Lisbon, Portugal. Invited by cultural organization Oporto and design studio Barbara says … , the siblings reported on their exciting search for information and images that made the life and work of forgotten Jewish author Fritz Kahn visible again. The conference’s list of speakers included Prof. Olga Pombo, designer and writer Jan Middendorp, and French design legend Massin.
Oporto / Barbara says …




February 6, 2012

Grafikdesign Münster

On February 6, Thilo von Debschitz spoke in the City of Münster, Germany, about the most important professional project of his life so far – the search for traces of Fritz Kahn. Entitled “Fritz Kahn – Pioneer in Information Design”, his lecture surveyed the forgotten author’s work. The talk included fascinating images from Fritz Kahn’s books, photos that illustrate his life story, and videos that show how his work influenced information design in the 20th and 21st centuries.
grafikdesign.ms (in German)




December 18, 2011

Druckfrisch

Denis Scheck, literary critic of the German TV station ARD, recommends books worth reading in his broadcast “Druckfrisch” (Hot off the Press). Scheck has already written to the authors that he is a fan of the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” (“The book on Kahn is compelling and inspiring.”). During his December 18 broadcast, he extended his generous praise with a matching image: Scheck positioned himself in a bookshop in front ot the publication “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” with the poster “Man as Industrial Palace” unfolded and outspread over surrounding piles of books. The advertising effect and merchandise appeal triggered by this split second scene has not been evaluated yet …
Druckfrisch (ARD-Mediathek)




December 1, 2011

Information Graphics, Taschen

With a full-page depiction of the famous Fritz Kahn poster “Der Mensch als Industriepalast” (Man as Industrial Palace), the magazine of the international publishing house Taschen promotes their upcoming book Information Graphics. Edited by Sandra Rendgen and Julius Wiedemann, the book presents a historical perspective on the subject, highlighting the work of the masters of the profession who have created a number of breakthroughs that were eventually adopted as new visual ways of communication. Advice from leading professionals such as Nigel Holmes, Paolo Ciuccarelli, Richard Saul Wurman, and Simon Rodgers is also included. Following an in-depth introduction, the book presents more than 400 examples of works, each with a fact sheet and an explanation of methods and objectives. The Industriepalast by Fritz Kahn, a milestone of visual information that explains the human body, is of course part of the book, which will be available in January 2012.
Taschen




October 28, 2011

Technoseum Mannheim

The exhibition Unser täglich Brot – Die Industrialisierung der Ernährung (Our Daily Bread – The Industrialization of Nutrition) at the Technoseum in Mannheim, Germany, opens on October 28, 2011 and continues until April 29, 2012. The exhibition includes four rarely seen images from books by Fritz Kahn. For example, “Biology of a roast’s smell” or “Man eats 1400 times his own weight in 70 years”, both dated 1926. A Kahn image explaining the functions of vitamins and their impact on human organs is included in the exhibition catalogue.
Technoseum Mannheim




October 3, 2011

Seminars in Nuclear Medicine

In the newest edition of this US-American science journal Lionel S. Zuckier, MD, illustrates his guest editorial on “Image Perception in nuclear medicine” with Fritz Kahn’s “The doctor of the future“. He finds it quite remarkable, that many elements of today’s reading room were already intuited by Fritz Kahn some 85 years ago. Zuckier gives some examples, including the close integration of clinical and imaging data and the importance of 2-way synchronous methods for the diagnostic process. The only thing, which could not have been forseen by Dr. Kahn in 1925, seems to be the computer.
Seminars in Nuclear Medicine (PDF download page)




September 21, 2011

SenseMaker Dialogs

Thilo von Debschitz guided the SenseMaker Dialogs audience at Pratt Institute on a journey into history: He summarized his work on Fritz Kahn (1888–1968), whose popular science books and images he stumbled upon by mere chance. The designer von Debschitz was blown away by the communicative impact of the book illustrations, which made complex facts easy to grasp in an understandable and visually attractive way. This discovery resulted in an intense research which he conducted with his sister. In their monograph Fritz Kahn – Man Machine / Maschine Mensch, the siblings provide public access to the inspiring life and work of Fritz Kahn. At the SenseMaker Dialogs, Thilo von Debschitz not only presented an introduction to Fritz Kahn, but also discussed cognitive visual concepts by other creative thinkers, some of whom have been influenced by Fritz Kahn’s work. The lecture took place at Pratt Institute, 144 West 14th Street, New York City. – SenseMaker Dialogs is an annual speaker series organized and sponsored by Humantific. Its focus is on managing complexity, for example through innovative and sense-making methods of information delivery. Previous speakers at SenseMaker Dialogs include architect, designer, and creator of the TED conference Richard Saul Wurman, Marshall Clemens (Idiagram), and Brian Willison (Parsons Institute for Information Mapping).
SenseMaker Dialogs (on Flickr)




August 20, 2011

Neue Zürcher Zeitung

In “Der Mensch als Maschine” (Man as Maschine), an article in the weekend issue of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Dr. Eduard Kaeser reflects on the simulation of brain functions, from the mechanical duck of Jacques de Vaucanson to the current Human Brain Project of Henry Markram at the ETH Lausanne. Despite technical progress in understanding how the human brain works and the ambitious promises of current neuroscience, Kaeser emphazises that imitation of living systems alone does not represent life. He refers to the automaton construction engineers of the 18th century, who did not overestimate their mechanistic point of view. And he quotes the famous metaphysician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: “Although we see the mechanics of the whole mill gear, the spirit remains hidden.” The NZZ article is illustrated with a large-format detail of “Der Mensch als Industriepalast” (Man as Industrial Palace), an image taken from the Fritz Kahn book “Das Leben des Menschen” (Life of Man) from 1926. – The Neue Zürcher Zeitung is a Swiss newspaper, published weekdays with a circulation of 140,000 copies.




August 1, 2011

Autoportret

In an article in the sience section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, the poster »Der Mensch als Industriepalast« (Man as Industrial Palace) by Fritz Kahn is characterized again as a “highlight of the current exhibition Health for Sale” (see entry from June 21, 2011, The New York Times) and displayed in a large format. The writer describes Kahn’s book series Das Leben des Menschen (Life of Man) as “visionary” and notes that the mostly forgotten author “is increasingly rediscovered”. … – The Sunday issue of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is published with a circulation of more than 350,000 copies.
Autoportret




July 23, 2011

Deutsches Hygiene-Museum

The exhibition “Images of the Mind” (July 23 to Oct. 31, 2011) – a bi-national project of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in Dresden and the Mährische Galerie in Brno (Czech Republic) – examines the human mind as visual phenomena. Through selected exhibits from antiquity to presence, it analyzes the role of the image in comprehending mental skills. In addition to drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, portraits of Rembrandt or Lucas Cranach, works of Max Beckmann, Man Ray, Max Ernst, and Bill Viola as well as numerous recent neuro-imaging operations from scientific institutes, four images from Fritz Kahn books are part of the exhibition: “Das Gedächtnis als Kinematograph” (Memory as Cinematograph), “Das Nervensystem als Muskel- und Klingelleitung in ihrer fünfteiligen Übereinstimmung” (The Nervous System as Muscle and Doorbell Connection in their five-part Congruence), “Die Empfindungsbahn als Radioleitung” (Sensory Pathways resemble Radio Wires), and the famous image “Der Mensch als Industriepalast” (Man as Industrial Palace). All images are included in the exhibition catalogue.
Deutsches Hygiene-Museum (Link to museum website in German)




July 17, 2011

Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung

In an article in the sience section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, the poster »Der Mensch als Industriepalast« (Man as Industrial Palace) by Fritz Kahn is characterized again as a “highlight of the current exhibition Health for Sale” (see entry from June 21, 2011, The New York Times) and displayed in a large format. The writer describes Kahn’s book series Das Leben des Menschen (Life of Man) as “visionary” and notes that the mostly forgotten author “is increasingly rediscovered”. … – The Sunday issue of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is published with a circulation of more than 350,000 copies.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung




June 21, 2011

The New York Times

In the Health section of The New York Times, Abigail Zuger judges the exhibition „Health for Sale“ at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (see entry from April 1, 2011) as “georgous and fiercely funny”. The journalist writes: “… But the star of the show may be the single image intended neither to cajole nor to terrify but to educate and amuse. The five-volume anatomy and physiology textbook that the German physician Fritz Kahn brought out in the 1920s was illustrated with a poster-size folding color plate depicting ‘Man as Industrial Palace,’ a work that combines the Lilliputian charms of ‘Where’s Waldo?,’ a Willy Wonka’s factory, the world’s best dollhouse and a really good pinball game. Up in the chambers of the brain, two groups of tiny men in suits and ties deliberate around small conference tables: they are, of course, Will and Reason. Nearby a lone fellow in shirtsleeves and headphones operates a telegraph: he is Hearing, while the photographer one cubicle over is Sight. Gears move particles of food along the alimentary tract, aided by tiny workers with rakes and cauldrons of digestive enzymes. Down in Bone Marrow a solitary artisan stamps out red blood cells. It is an image begging to be animated, and the contemporary German designer Henning M. Lederer has done just that, in a short film looping alongside the actual lithograph. There is no need to travel to Philadelphia for this particular pleasure, though; Mr. Lederer’s utterly irresistible creation is online. …” – The New York Times has a circulation of 870,000 copies during the week and 1.3 million copies on Sunday (Oct. 2010).
The New York Times (complete article)




April 27, 2011

Guter Rat

The may 2011 issue of the German magazine “Guter Rat” (good advice) features – among other topics – the human digestive system. A four-page article includes a summary of the famous Fritz Kahn illustration “Man as Industrial Palace”: “ … Chunks of raw material are thrown into the mouth, where grinding wheels pulverize the chunks, and a worker operates the saliva injectors. Then the mash slides down a thick pipe to the next level of digestion. Kahn’s depiction is based in reality. … Simplified, digestion can be seen as conveyor belt. Each station is responsible for a specific step in the digestion process.” The article refers to the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” and this website. – “Guter Rat” is a monthly publication of Hubert Burda Media with a circulation of 250,000 copies.
Guter Rat (German website)




April 2, 2011

Designers Book List

What are the 10 favourite books of today’s leading designers? The people who operate the Designers & Books website asked famous creatives to submit their lists, and we discovered that American designer Seymour Chwast includes the monograph Fritz Kahn – Man Machine on his top-10 list. Chwast is one of the most influential illustrators and graphic designers alive; together with his partners Milton Glaser and Edward Sorel, he founded Push Pin Studios in 1954, and the studio's distinct style has had a worldwide influence on contemporary visual communication. He now is director of The Pushpin Group. Chwast’s designs and illustrations have been exhibited in major galleries and museums in the US, Europe, Japan, Brazil, and Russia. Chwast and Push Pin were honored at the Louvre in Paris in a two-month retrospective exhibition. His posters are in the permanent collection of MoMA; the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; the Library of Congress; the Gutenberg Museum; and the Israel Museum, among others.
Seymour Chwast’s Book List




April 1, 2011

Philadelphia Museum of Art

From April 1 to July 31, 2011, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is exhibiting “Health for Sale”, a collection of antique medical- and health-related posters from the William H. Helfand Collection. One of the museum's exhibits is “Der Mensch als Industriepalast”, a 1926 poster by Fritz Kahn that depicts the human body as a factory in cross-section. The lithograph is accompanied by a computer-animated visualization from 2009, based on the Fritz Kahn original, that shows the poster's industrialized human-machine in motion. The visualization was planned and executed by German computer artist Henning Lederer. (The original poster and Lederer’s installation are both included in the first monograph on Kahn, Fritz Kahn – Man Machine.) The museum states that the exhibition exists to show how hygiene, medical conferences, public health campaigns, and cure-all medications were advertised in the early 20th century.
Exhibition information




February 1, 2011

The Scientist

Fritz Kahn’s illustration “sunbath” is the visual teaser of “Light Therapy, circa 1939” in the online edition of The Scientist. A supplementary slide show presents additional images from the highly illustrated book Fritz Kahn – Man Machine. The article especially recommends the monograph’s numerous images and the “riveting narration revealing the mastermind behind them”. The “legendary science writer” captured “the imagination of an international audience with hundreds of wildly inventive illustrations”. – The Scientist is an award-winning news magazine focusing on biology and the life sciences.
The Scientist (complete article)




December 20, 2010

Magazin zum Jahreswechsel

As a New Year’s resolution, doctor and best-selling author Prof. Dietrich Groenemeyer recommends listening more to our hearts – and refers to doctor and best-selling author Fritz Kahn. In a special year-end magazine edition of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung titled “The voice of the heart”, Groenemeyer writes: “In the 20s of the previous century, Fritz Kahn depicted the human body as an ‘Industrial Palace’. The open body reveals an image of a chemical factory: Organs are replaced by technical machines; the heart is is shown as a pump with two pistons. For a long time, it wasn’t recognized that this was also meant as a warning sign about the loss of human warmth and nobleness of heart, and a decline into high-tech barbarism.” The article includes the famous Kahn image “Man as Industrial Palace”, where numerous homunculi operate internal human functions. The heart, Groenemyer explains, is able to feel, and if it reacts with pain that is not necessarily an expression of organic disfunctions that can be repaired through technical effort. – The “Magazin zum Jahreswechsel” is a newsstand title with a circulation of 120,000 and available throughout Germany. It contains reporting, essays, chronicles, and photo documentaries assembled by the journalists of the Süddeutsche Zeitung.




November 15, 2010

NZZ Folio

The November 2010 issue of NZZ Folio is entitled “The superbrain: How to get smart”. Throughout the 96-page article are visualizations of the human brain, including several from the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine / Maschine Mensch”. Also included: a photographic depiction of Fritz Kahn demonstrating the activity of the cerebral cortex with gestures for his book “Das Leben des Menschen IV“ (1929), and the original illustration “Walnut and Human Brain”, which Kahn made for his publication “Der Mensch gesund und krank” (1939). – NZZ Folio is enclosed in the Swiss newspaper “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” and included in the print runs of other daily newspapers every first Monday of the month. The magazine reaches a paid circulation of more than 200,000 copies.
NZZ Folio




October 25, 2010

:output award 2010

For his interactive animated application inspired by Fritz Kahn’s poster “Man as Industrial Palace”, German designer Henning Lederer received the :output award 2010. The :output award is the biggest international competition for students in design and architecture. The monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” introduced Henning Lederer’s exam project as one of several contemporary interpretations of the “Industrial Palace”.
output award 2010




October 10, 2010

SPIEGEL online

On its home page the weekly magazine DER SPIEGEL introduces Fritz Kahn with a detail of the poster “Man as Industrial Palace”. In the section “One day – contemporary histories”, Christoph Gunkel’s article “Inside the Human Machine” portrays the “body explainer Fritz Kahn”, closely following “the amazing volume Fritz Kahn – Man Machine / Maschine Mensch.” More than 20 selected illustrations give the reader a visual introduction to Kahn’s work. In just one day, the online article attracted about 1 million page impressions – a demonstration of how well Kahn's images match the current zeitgeist.
einestages-spiegel.de (full review in German)




September 12, 2010

Arredamento Mimarlik

In its September issue, Arredamento Mimarlik, a leading magazine for architecture and design in Turkey, looks back on the TYPO 2010 conference in Berlin and focuses on the rediscovery of Fritz Kahn. The article reads, in part: “The talk by Uta and Thilo von Debschitz on Dr. Fritz Kahn pointed out how Kahn compared the human body with a machine, and how he made perfect use of metaphors. Young historians and illustrators are highly interested in this comprehensive and detailed book.”




June 7, 2010

Weltwissen Sachunterricht

The magazine “Weltwissen Sachunterricht” (World Knowledge Social Siences) dedicates its 2/2010 issue to the topic “Technical Learning: Machines”. In his article, Prof. Dr. Helmut Schreier describes the relationship between men and machines. He provides a complete outline of machine innovations, from the prehistoric biface to the computer era, and considers Fritz Kahn’s sentient machine metaphors. Schreier presents the image “Man as Industrial Palace” and refers to the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine”. – “Weltwissen Sachunterricht” addresses elementary school teachers and contains educational articles in social studies, providing didactic impulses for pedagogues in various topics. It is edited by a school book publisher, has a printrun of 3,500 copies and a frequency of four issues per year.
weltwissen-sachunterricht.de




May 31, 2010

literaturkritik.de

In his review entitled “Man as Industrial Palace“ Behrang Samsami features the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine”. In his conclusion he says it was “an important new release in many respects”. – Literaturkritik.de is an online magazine, reviewing new publications in fiction, literature, and cultural studies.
literaturkritik.de (full review in German)




May 26, 2010

Orthopädie & Rheuma

The May 2010 issue of the special-interest magazine Orthopädie & Rheuma (Orthopaedics & Rheumatism) features a three-page article and book recommendation for Fritz Kahn – Man Machine by Dr. med. Eberhard J. Wormer. He writes: “Until recently he was the big unknown, an outdated littérateur of the 20th century. Now the enigmatic Fritz Kahn has returned to the world stage. Graphic designers discover his esthetic quality, medical historians his competence regarding content, and the media celebrates his image invention ‘Man as Industrial Palace’ … The reanimation of the long-forgotten enlightener is a great fortune.” – Orthopädie & Rheuma is published nine times a year and addresses orthopaedic specialists, rheumatologists, pain therapists, and sports-medicine specialists with a circulation of 6,500.
Orthopädie & Rheuma (complete review in German as PDF)




May 22, 2010

TYPO Berlin

Uta und Thilo von Debschitz At the TYPO Berlin design conference, Uta und Thilo von Debschitz presented their work on the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” and a subsequent exhibition. Entitled “Infected! The Picture Virus of Dr. Fritz Kahn”, the lecture described their research (initiated by coincidence) in Berlin, Zürich, and New York. The siblings showed selected illustrations from the rich image legacy of Fritz Kahn as well as contemporary visual reflections on Kahn. The international audience observing the presentation in the auditorium of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt responded with applause and enthusiasm; comments include: “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine is blowing my mind!” (Candy Chang, designer/USA), “Marvelous illustrations. A real information artist!” (Gloria Biber, designer/Germany), “Wonderful presentation” (Ardan Erguven, designer, writer/Turkye), “Spectacular book” (Sabine Danek, editor PAGE/Germany), “Great project” (Eike König, Designer), “Impressed by the forceful passion of Thilo and Uta von Debschitz” (Karin Schmidt-Friderichs, design book publisher/Germany),“Uta and Thilo von Debschitz performed design archeology and uncovered the magnificent works of Fritz Kahn.” (Jens Tenhaeff, photographer/Germany) – TYPO Berlin is the biggest design conference in Europe, with 1,200 attendees from all over the world. At this year’s “Passion”-themed conference, designers and creatives presented projects that were essentially inspired by fervent devotion to a particular subject.
TYPO Berlin




May 13, 2010

Christie’s

An event at London-based auctioneer Christie’s focuses on Vintage Posters. Among the objects being auctioned in South Kensington on May 13, 2010, is “Der Mensch als Industriepalast” (Man as Industrial Palace), Fritz Kahn’s famous depiction of the human body as a factory.
Christie’s (detail page)




May 11, 2010

designabilities

Tom Bieling, designer, author, and founding member of the Design Research Network, presents a book review on Fritz Kahn – Man Machine in his research blog designabilities.org. Among other comments, he writes: “The book ‘Man Machine‘ contains two aspects. … On one hand, it preserves and bestows the almost forgotten story of a German researcher’s destiny. … In addition, this historical document is contemporary in its popular science approach by showing the upcoming generations of scientists and designers the potential of various patterns of knowing and thinking.”
designabilities.orh (full review in German)




April 7, 2010

Eye

The current issue of Eye, the London-based international review of graphic design, introduces Fritz Kahn’s imagery in a four-page article. Referring to the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine/Maschine Mensch”, Eye founder Rick Poynor emphasizes the continuing impact of the illustrations: “Images that once looked futuristic, expressing the technological dreams and aspirations of their time, seem dated and even comical, measured against our own command of technology and the biosciences. But this in no way diminishes their appeal.” As examples for newer graphic design that refers to Kahn’s work, he mentions works by Eduardo Paolozzi, Fernando Vicente, and Young & Rubicam.
eye (issue 75/10)




April 6, 2010

Rhein-Zeitung

In its literature section, the German newspaper Rhein-Zeitung published an article on the book “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine / Maschine Mensch”. It notes that Kahn’s work has been forgotten for many years. But now, an “opulent literary monument” has been erected for him by the “magnificent, visually expressive monograph”. – Rhein-Zeitung is the leading newspaper in the Middle Rhine area with a daily circulation of 200,000.
Rhein-Zeitung




March 28, 2010

univadis

Medicine portal univadis published an elaborate interview as a special article, entitled “Fritz Kahn: a solitaire in a league of his own”, which quotes findings from the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine”. Professor Cornelius Borck, head of the institute for the history of medicine and science studies in Lübeck, Germany, emphasizes Fritz Kahn’s influence on the creation of the modern idea of mankind: Based on functional principles and structural characteristics, Kahn’s depictions are exemplary even now; his knowledge, delivered by analogies from the world of engineering, enhanced our wonder and amazement at our own bodies. Many philosophical spirits ot the times were combined in Kahn’s personality. He participated in all the radical experiences of modernization in the early 20th century. In his books, the author focused on a reconciliation between man and machine, on a “new adoption of the body out of a technical familiarity”.
univadis (full interview as PDF)




March 26, 2010

Berliner Morgenpost

The Berliner Morgenpost publishes a 16-page special edition celebrating the 300th anniversary of the Charité (university hospital) in Berlin. On the back page a large image from the Fritz-Kahn-exhibition introduces the “events” section. – The Morgenpost, founded in 1898 and today part of the Welt-company, has a circulation of 134,000 copies and is the second-most read daily newspaper in the German capital.
Berliner Morgenpost




March 26, 2010

Die Welt

Die Welt celebrates the 300th anniversary of the Charité (university hospital) in Berlin with a 16-page special edition. As a prominent feature of the “events” section, it presents the image “When we see a car and say ‘car’” from the exhibition “Fritz Kahn – Maschine Mensch”. – Die Welt is a daily German newspaper that sells over 260,000 copies in 130 countries.
Welt




March 19, 2010

vitra Design Museum

The exhibition “The Essence of Things” at the vitra Design Museum (March 20 to September 19, 2010) looks at the motifs of reduction principles that have shaped design througout time and many environments. In the exhibition catalogue, co-curator Martin Hartung raises the question of man as the “measure of all things”. He writes that due to industrialization, machines began to imitate human gestures and alienated people from the world of things. Fritz Kahn stylized the machine as an allegory of the human body to “overcome the society’s alienation from material things and reconcile it with the world. For the purpose of illustrating the processes that had mechanized society, the most obvious model to present itself was the human body”. As an example, Hartung shows the Kahn image “Man as Industrial Palace”, a poster from 1926.
vitra Design Museum




March 17, 2010

F.LM

German online film magazine F.LM has published an interesting double review entitled “Machine heart and heart machine” on two books with a lot in common: the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” and a catalogue titled “Fritz Lang’s Metropolis”. Just like the film “Metropolis”, which is celebrating a great comeback in its restored version, public interest in the work of Fritz Kahn has been revived by a new book and exhibition. The cultural influences on Fritz Kahn and Fritz Lang were derived from the same era, the Berlin of the 1920s. According to the article, Lang’s achievement in “Metropolis”, from a macro-perspective, was the same as Kahn’s achievement in the micro-perspective. The Kahn monograph analyzes his methaporical visual language, which often refers to aspects of film and cinema. Lang’s famous vision and the illustrations of Fritz Kahn are noted as “explicit milestones of European Futurism”. Just as in the machined city of Metropolis, a heart machine is central to Kahn’s body depictions, “in which little pistons are busy pumping blood through the arteries. … Kahn’s machine heart keeps the human body operational, just as Lang’s heart machine sustained the Metropolis urban compound”. Thanks to the screening of the film and the exhibition, both in Berlin, “these two artists have moved closer to each other – geographically and thematically”.
F.LM (full review in German)




March 11, 2010

Deutscher Drucker

The rediscovery of Dr. Fritz Kahn earned a recommendation from Deutscher Drucker magazine. The article praises the “master of visualization” and “pioneer of popular science publication whose images inspire designers and artists even today”. The result of the Debschitz siblings’ research is a “wonderfully designed book” and a “remarkable exhibition”. – Deutscher Drucker is the leading special-interest magazine of the printing and media industry in Germany as well as the official journal for executives in the association of the printing and information-processing industry.
Deutscher Drucker




March 6, 2010

Junge Welt

Wolfgang Müller, artist and spokesman of the Berlin avant garde group “Die Tödliche Doris,” published a review in the daily newspaper Junge Welt. He recommends the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” and concludes: “A beautifully designed, informative, and entertaining book that includes a critique of the life and work of Fritz Kahn. This is not a book for the science department. It is actually more appropriate for the art shelves today. It is too good for a cabinet of curiosities.” Junge Welt (Young World) is a nationwide daily newspaper with a leftist, Marxist orientation, based in Berlin. By its own account, the print version reaches around 50,000 readers, and the web site generates 3.4 million page views on average per month.
Junge Welt (full article in German)




March 4, 2010

Deutsches Ärzteblatt

Fritz Kahn is the subject of a three-page article by Nobert Jachertz, the long-time former chief editor of Deutsches Ärzteblatt. Reffering to the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine / Maschine Mensch” (a “perfectly designed volume”) and the Charité-exhibition (“the machine-man in exciting contrast to Virchow’s specimens”), he portrays Kahn as a representative of modernity. His method of public education, which was influenced by Futurism, could also be understood as an “art”, the author says, but in any case as an interpretation of the society of his time. Deutsches Ärzteblatt has been an official organ of the medical profession since 1872 and is distributed to all physicians in Germany. With 405,000 copies, the weekly publication is Germany's larges- circulation medical journal.
Deutsches Ärzteblatt issue 9/2010 (full article in German)




March 3, 2010

Deutsche Welle (Russia)

On the Russian website of Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster, Andrey Gorokhov reports on Fritz Kahn in two articles, one on Kahn’s biography, and the other on the exhibition in Berlin. Gorokhov calls Kahn “one of the most interesting popularizers of science”, who explained human nature with “unique and expressive images at the edge of absurdity”. The article emphasizes this by providing detailled descriptions of images such as “Man as Industrial Palace”, “Daily hair growth”, and “The performance of the heart”.
Deutsche Welle (full article 1 and full article 2 in Russian)




March 1, 2010

IL – Intelligence in Lifestyle

IL, the monthly lifestyle supplement of the leading Italian financial newspaper Il Sole 24 ORE, recommended the exhibition in Berlin. Among other comments, IL notes: “What happens when we ring a bell, smell a roast, or have an erection? Jewish intellectual and gynaecologist Fritz Kahn (1888–1968) dedicated his life to explaining the human machine and its functions. It is impossible not to see these illustrations as reflections of Weimar Modernism, not to see Kahn as a pioneer of information design. The Medical Historical Museum of the Charité – founded by Rudolf Virchow, another popular educator – honors him with [the exhibition] ‘Man Machine’, a selection of his best works.”
IL – Intelligence in Lifestyle (magazine site on Facebook)




March 1, 2010

Zahnärztliche Mitteilungen

In issue 5/2010 the magazine Zahnärztliche Mitteilungen covers the Kahn exhibition at the Charité in Berlin. Key visual is “The Doctor of the Future”, Kahn’s vision of tele-medicine in the version of 1925. The article entitled “Body Images of Modernity” is supplemented by a short biography of Fritz Kahn.
zm-online (full article in German)




March 1, 2010

Berliner Ärzte

“An important rediscovery!” This statement opens a one-page article on Fritz Kahn in “Berliner Ärzte” (March 2010). The author describes her perception of the exhibition in the Berlin Museum of Medical History (“well integrated with the permanent exhibition”) and the monograph (“commendable book … one gets to know many interesting things about Kahn's life and work”). In an anecdote, she also reports on the impressions that a Kahn postcard imparted to the famous psychosomatic Thure von Uexhüll. – “Berliner Ärzte” is a monthly magazine distributed to 26,000 Berlin physicians.
Berliner Ärzte (full article in German)




February 26, 2010

VivArt

“Extraordinary. It is not only a literary examination of cultural history, but also a survey of design history. A must see and must read!”
VivArt, magazine for culture and savoir-vivre, Spring issue 2010




February 22, 2010

tv berlin

The exhibition “Fritz Kahn - Man Machine” is the topic of the “Frühcafé Talk” on tv berlin. Curator Uta Debschitz, the studio guest, provdes detailed information about Fritz Kahn and the illustrations shown in the exhibition.
tv berlin (broadcast recording in German)




February 18, 2010

Technische Rundschau

In its online edition, the magazine Technische Rundschau introduces Fritz Kahn as tech-savvy and “Swiss by choice”. The author, Klaus Koch, says the images could certainly be interpreted as early depictions of supply chains and warehouse management systems. However, he also refers to the versatile perspective of the universalist Kahn, to whom a human being was far more than just a set of mechanisms. – The Technische Rundschau, published monthly, is a leading Swiss industrial journal.
Technische Rundschau (full article in German)




February 17, 2010

Frankfurter Rundschau

In his two-page article for the Frankfurter Rundschau, Felix Helberg wrote: “A monograph about Fritz Kahn, presented by the authors Uta and Thilo von Debschitz, and simultaneously an exhibition at the Berlin Charité, show how significantly Kahn’s human-mechanical images influenced modern man’s understanding of his bodily functions. […] What is left of Kahn has been gathered by the authors of this very first Kahn monograph in an enormous research achievement – a unique rediscovery. […] The flood of images reveals how modern humans discovered themselves through insights on their own functional structure, by inventing technical apparatuses. Even in their ambiguity – as the authors of this wonderful monograph summarize it – Kahn’s images visualize the limits of technical education and the promise of humanity that the faith in technical progress once implied.”
Frankfurter Rundschau (full article in German)




February 12, 2010

Deutsches Ärzteblatt

The official publication of the German Medical Association and the Association of SHI Physicians presents its readers a choice of outstanding exhibitions every four weeks. In its cultural calendar the Deutsche Ärzteblatt recommends the Berlin exhibition “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” as “Special Tip”.
Deutsches Ärzteblatt




February 11, 2010

múlt-kor

On the occasion of the Berlin exhibition, the Hungarian history portal múlt-kor commemorates Fritz Kahn, whose works were also well received in Hungary. Múlt-kor covers the history of Hungary and is intended for educators and students.
múlt-kor (full article in Hungarian)




February 10, 2010

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The FAZ dedicates half of the page titled “Research and Teaching” to a review of the exhibition Fritz Kahn – Maschine Mensch. The author describes Kahn as a “magician of popular science”, his “always surprising and often hilarious visual metaphors are disconcerting, but also fascinating.” As example, she mentions images like “Man eats 1400 times his weight in 70 years” or “daring but delicious, The radish sandwich as cerebellar model”. A large image that illustrates the congruence of the automobile and the ear was selected to illustrate the article.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is a leading national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily and has a circulation of about 370,000. It is the German newspaper with the widest circulation abroad, with its editors claiming to deliver the newspaper to 148 countries every day.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung




February 9, 2010

Prof. Dr. Cornelius Borck

“Nothing but machines in the head – Nature and Culture in Fritz Kahn’s technological humanism” is the title of the Lübeck medical historian Cornelius Borck’s lecture on the idea of man and machine before and in Kahn’s work. The public lecture series takes place in the auditorium of the ruins of the Berlin Medical Museum, where the exhibit Fritz Kahn - Man Machine is currently presented. In a complementary guided tour, curator Uta von Debschitz demonstrates how mechanistic ideas are reflected and contrasted in Kahn’s images. Cornelius Borck, author of an essay in the monograph Kahn Fritz Kahn - Man Machine, is a physician, a philosopher, and, since 2007, director of the Institute for History of Medicine and Science Studies at the University of Lübeck.
Institut für Medizingeschichte und Wissenschaftsforschung




February 9, 2010

Ärzte Zeitung

In her article on the exhibit “Fritz Kahn - Man Machine”, the author refers to various aspects of the opening speeches: Patroness Ulla Schmidt emphasized Kahn’s preventive approach, Charité Chairman Max Einhäupl his vision for high-tech medicine, museum director Thomas Schnalke his significant influence on the modern image of the body, and curator Uta Debschitz his imagery as an artistic “intervention” in the Berlin Medical Historical Museum.
Ärzte Zeitung (full article in German)




February 5, 2010

FleischMagazin

Even „FleischMagazin“ (meat magazine), an international publication for the meat industry, has discovered Fritz Kahn. Entitled “Biology of a roast’ smell – and more phenomena”, a one-page review in issue 1-2/2010 discusses the Fritz Kahn monograph. It points out Kahn’s contributions to the topic of nutrition, and, among other images, depicts the illustration “In 70 years, man eats 1,400 times his own weight”. The elaborate article ends: “An extraordinary book – about an extraordinary character.”
FleischMagazin




February 3, 2010

Telepolis

The author of this article on the exhibit “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” closes with his overall impression: “An unexplored continent opens up. A fascinating encounter with a strange but likeable ancestor of the public understanding of science.”
Telepolis (full article in German)




February 1, 2010

pro care

A review in the February issue of “pro care” magazine deals with the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine / Maschine Mensch”. It notes: “Kahn creates a fantastic world that shapes complex coherencies into stirring stories and makes them easy to grasp. In the 1920s, his audience appreciated that, but then the treasure became buried. Now, it might be excavated again for the general public.”
pro care (full review in German)




February 1, 2010

German Missions in the United States

The newsletter Deutschland Nachrichten (Germany News) recommends the Berlin exhibition on the German-American Fritz Kahn. – Germany.info is the joint web site of the German Embassy, the German Information Center, and the eight German Consulates in the United States. The weekly newsletter is aimed particularly at Germans and Americans who have lived in Germany.
germany.info (newsletter in German)




February 1, 2010

mare

“Man as Aquarium” is the title of a ten-page article about ocean lover Fritz Kahn in “mare–the magazine of the seas” (issue 78, February/March 2010). Whereas Kahn’s man-machine analogies are the focus of the Fritz Kahn monograph and exhibition, Uta von Debschitz introduces a less recognized, but particularly charming subject in this article: Kahn's human-sea-analogies. They are illustrated with remarkable findings from Kahn’s works and correspondence, and by seven of the most beautiful maritime illustrations with unconventional original captions.
mare




January 30/31, 2010

Berliner Zeitung

Fritz Kahn’s “Man as Industrial Palace” adorned the front-page of the special supplement to the 26th “Long Night of the Museums” in Berlin. The symbiosis between art and science was the main focus. Feuilleton editor Ingeborg Ruthe commented on the motif and the Kahn exhibition in the introduction:
“It was one of the most brilliant symbioses of science and art, produced by the popular science business of the Weimar Republic. Posterity ows this exemplary book illustration on ‘man machine’, which was also reproduced as a poster, to the Berlin physician and scientist Fritz Kahn. He had to flee Hitler’s Germany in 1933. Now his witty legacy has returned in a lovingly and meticulously prepared exhibition – perfect for all ages! – in the Berlin Museum of Medical History of the Charité.”
According to Ruthe the exhibition visualizes, “how a museum of medical history can have a bridge-building function, as soon as humans ask about the meaning, purpose, and consequences of their existence on earth.” More than 3,500 people visited the Fritz Kahn exhibition during today’s “Long Night of the Museums” in Berlin.
Berliner Zeitung (Caption and Text in German)




January 30, 2010

MoMA Design and Book Store

Joining numerous international traders such as the museum shops at the National Galleries of Scotland or the Vienna MuseumsQuartier, the Museum of Modern Art Design and Book Store has decided to list the Fritz Kahn monograph. It offers the book online and in its flagship store in the museum building in New York City, along with its extensive inventory of art reproductions, design objects, and more than 2,000 book titles. Positive side effect: Every purchase supports the Museum of Modern Art.
MoMA




January 28, 2010

designreport

“Furnished upper story” – referring to Fritz Kahns cross-sectional depictions of the human head and its various chambers – is the title of a two-page review by journalist Thomas Edelmann in the German magazine “designreport” (issue 1/2010). Among other observations, he notes: “He was one of the pioneers in information design in the 1920s: author and doctor Fritz Kahn. The impact of his images is based on unique analogies and layers of organic processes and technical shapes – now re-presented in a book that is unputdownable. […] Although current knowledge of our elaborately furnished brainboxes does not match the speculation of the Fritz Kahn era, his illustrations inspire us in a new manner even today.”
designreport (full article in German)




January 27, 2010

Ärzte Woche

“Kahn’s analogies and detailed depictions, which still influence our ideas about bodily functions, are fascinating and captivating. He creates a fantastic world that forms complex interrelations into stirring stories and in this way, makes things easy to understand. His audience in the 1920s appreciated this before this treasure was buried. Now it has been revived.”
Ärzte Woche / SpringerMedizin, issue 4/2010 (full review in German)




January 25, 2010

Neues Deutschland

Journalist Andreas Heinz of Neues Deutschland reviews the Fritz Kahn exhibition in an article entitled: “Was eine Wanderzelle alles erlebt” (The experiences of a wandering cell). Neues Deutschland is a nationwide newspaper based in Berlin, focusing on East Germany.
Neues Deutschland (full article in German)




January 25, 2010

Scienceblog in Brazil

Luciana Christante, a freelance journalist in Brazil, publishes in her blog on science, history, and art a detailed article about the Fritz Kahn monograph and the exhibition in Berlin.
Scienceblogs (full article in Portugese)




January 23, 2010

Radio Eins

The popular science program “Die Profis” (“The Pros”) short for “The Professionals” features an interview with Uta von Debschitz, curator of the exhibition “Fritz Kahn – Maschine Mensch” at the Berlin Medical Historical Museum. – Radio Eins, produced by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, is a leading infotainment radio station in the Berlin capital region with an average reach of 100,000 listeners per hour.
radio eins RBB (full interview as mp3 file in German)




January 22, 2010

SPIEGEL Online

The international edition of SPIEGEL Online reports on the exhibition “Fritz Kahn – Maschine Mensch” in an article entitled ”Exhibition Pays Tribute to 1920s Doctor – The Human Body as Factory”. – DER SPIEGEL is Europe’s leading newsmagazine, and SPIEGEL Online is the most-visited news site in Germany. SPIEGEL International brings this unique European perspective to the English-speaking world.
SPIEGEL Online International (full article in English)




January 22, 2010

Berlin Museum of Medical History

The Berlin Museum of Medical History of the Charité (university hospital) presents the world’s first Fritz Kahn exhibition, from January 23 to April 11, 2010, entitled “Fritz Kahn – Maschine Mensch”. The exhibition under the patronage of Ulla Schmidt, the former Federal Minister of Health, is part of the series “Intervention”, which presents art in the medical context. More than 100 of the most interesting illustrations from the books by Fritz Kahn are on display. › more




January 18, 2010

DER SPIEGEL

”Man as a machine. – Starting next Saturday, the Museum of Medical History of the Charité in Berlin shows almost forgotten graphics and illustrations by the legendary gynecologist Fritz Kahn. From 1922 to 1931, Dr. Kahn published a five-volume book series, ‘The Life of Man‘, which became a bestseller. The series explains the complicated processes of the human body in cleverly designed display boards that portray human beings as well-functioning machines: The trachea, for example, is depicted as a branched pipeline that transports oxygen balls in an elevator. Downstairs in the liver, workers process packets of sugar and starch on an assembly line. In the head, two scientists operate an electronic control panel while a colleague in a chamber below monitors blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing. As Kahn himself was not particularly good at drawing, he had professional illustrators elaborate his drafts,  including the Technical-Schematic Representation of the Male Erectile System.” – DER SPIEGEL is a German weekly magazine, published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe’s largest weekly magazines with a circulation of more than one million.
DER SPIEGEL (issue 3/2010)




January 6, 2010

Wiesbadener Kurier

Johanna Dupré, cultural journalist for the Wiesbadener Kurier, reviews Fritz Kahn’s visual language and describes how the monograph was created. In her article, “Biology of a roast’s smell”, she writes: “The reader always gets surprised by humorous image ideas and might be reminded of contemporary movements such as Cubism, Futurism, Art Déco, or – as clash between distant realities – Surrealism.” – The “Wiesbadener Kurier” is the largest newspaper in Wiesbaden, capital of the State of Hesse.
Wiesbadener Kurier (review in German)




December 14, 2009

grafik

“A humanist and educator, a visualiser of the amazing things happening inside our bodies and out, Fritz Kahn was inspiring. This book is the first monograph to be published about the German doctor and scientist who wowed the 1920s world with his book ‘Das Leben des Menschen (The Life of Man)’. In the graphic design world we’re familiar with the information design of Otto Neurath and later Edward Tufte, but here is a precursor whom we (at grafik at least) didn’t know before, but are very happy to discover through this book. There seems to be no limit to the good doctor’s imagination – there is a drawing for everything from neurological functions such as ‘What goes on in out heads when we see and say Car’ to ‘Sunbathing: the twelve effects of sunlight on the skin’ and crazier investigations like ‘Man as aquarium: it would be possible to keep seahorses in human fluid …’. These make fascinating viewing not only for their beauty as drawings but also for the light they cast on society at the time.”
grafik, The Magazine for Graphic Design, issue December 2009




December 12, 2009

buchkatalog.de

“Finally, the large-format, thoroughly researched book by the siblings Uta and Thilo von Debschitz makes the work of Fritz Kahn re-accessible. The opulent German-English volume presents Kahn’s enormous image world and matches the latest trend: Today, Kahn inspires and fascinates graphic designers around the world again.”
Reinhold Kampmann, scientific journalist




December 4, 2009

étapes

étapes, the French magazine of design and visual culture, published a review of “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” in its international (French/English) issue, December 2010. It concludes: “The scientific pedagogy they [Kahns’ images] bring forward, midway between the worlds of arts and apprenticeship, could serve as excellent flagships for visual communication.”
étapes (full review as PDF)




December 1, 2009

PAGE

PAGE, Germany’s leading magazine for design, advertising, and media, praises the Fritz Kahn book in its 01/2010 issue and wonders “how discoveries like this could be possible at all”. Entitled “Inside Man”, a three-page review tells the story of how the Kahn monograph came to be and why the works of the famous popular science author remained fascinating from the 1920s until today.
PAGE




November 26, 2009

Monitor online

In the section Moniskop the Austrian magazine for information technology Monitor presents newly published non-fiction. The recommended books on scientific topics also include “Man Machine – Maschine Mensch”.
Monitor online (full article in German)




November 25, 2009

Slanted

In the German weblog Slanted, which focuses on typography and design, an article titled “An exceptional monograph” starts as follows: “After extensive research, Uta and Thilo von Debschitz compiled their spectacular discoveries about the life and work of Fritz Kahn in a publication. The result is an exciting monograph on the life and legacy of a man who dedicated himself to popular science theories and left behind remarkable illustrations.”
Slanted (German)




November 11, 2009

translations\03

Thilo von Debschitz will introduce the book project “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” at a Pecha Kucha Night on November 20, 2009, which is part of the international symposium translations\03 in Mainz, Germany. Renowned designers such as Stefan Sagmeister, Mike Meiré, and Lars Müller speak on the first day of the symposium, themed “authorship in design”. That evening, the symposium’s Pecha Kucha Night presents twenty remarkable design topics in short lectures.
translations\03 (Pecha Kucha Night retrospect in German)




November 11, 2009

TYPO Berlin 2010

At TYPO Berlin 2010 (Passion), in addition to renowned speakers such as Carlos Segura (Chicago), Rick Poynor (London), and Oliver Reichenstein (Zurich), siblings Uta and Thilo von Debschitz will present their passionate book project on Fritz Kahn. They will explain how they became fascinated by Kahn’s inspiring work and how their fascination led to an adventurous search for documents, images, and facts.  TYPO Berlin, Europe’s premier annual design conference, will be attended by some 1200 typographers, designers, and media creatives from all over the world. For three days, leaders in the disciplines of graphics, design, media, and art will present their work and stories, augmented by lectures, roundtables, workshops, and initiatives. The conference will take place at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany, May 20-22, 2010.
TYPO Berlin 2010




November 9, 2009

Immer schön sachlich

In his blog on specialized books, “Immer schön sachlich“ (stick to facts), Michael Schikowski reviews the Fritz Kahn monograph. Under the title “Verblüffungsmaschine Fritz Kahn” (amazement machine Fritz Kahn), he summarizes a “wonderfully designed book” whose authors remain objective while conveying their passion for visualization. Schikowski emphasizes the original illustration “Walnut and Brain” and the sense of sight portrayed as a movie production of the mind. Referring to Kahn’s analogies, he recommends supplemental annotation to verify their real contribution to scientific understanding.
Immer schön sachlich (full review in German)




November 6, 2009

The Design Observer Group

“The amazing cutaway diagrams of German scientist, gynecologist and author Fritz Kahn finally get their due in a new book. Do not miss this.”
Michael Bierut




November 4, 2009

The New York Times

“The Moment”, the New York Times Style Magazine blog, features  an article on Fritz Kahn and the monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine”. Author Steven Heller explains his fascination with Kahn’s visual style in his review of the “beautiful Kahn monograph”.
The New York Times (full review)




November 1, 2009

output: book of the month

Output, an Austrian B2B magazine for information and communication technology, elects the Kahn monograph “book of the month” in its November issue.
Output (German)




October 25, 2009

Roger Willemsen

“Uta and Thilo von Debschitz have saved the memory of a unique man who was an allrounder, an explorer, and a designer of the humanly possible in text, image, and science. If there was any justice in the world of art, Kahn would be considered as someone who almost singlehandly opened and closed a chapter of intellectual history. What a remarkable, beautiful, and inspiring book!”
Roger Willemsen




October 15, 2009

Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer, Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen

“To me it’s just fascinating that at the end of the year 2009 we are interested in books from long ago. I’m thinking of the monograph ‘Fritz Kahn – Man Machine’, for example, or of ‘The Red Book’ of C. G. Jung, which was published just recently. They lead us to the conclusion that we should not forget ‘old’ people and their books but learn from them instead. As for Kahn, I found particularly interesting that he, as a gynaecologist, did not really understand women but was able to beautifully visualize the male erection. This book is fascinating – not only for sexologists.”
Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer

“That’s how medical knowledge is given to the world. This book is a lucky strike!”
Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen




October 10, 2009

Frankfurt Book Fair 2009

At the Frankfurt Book Fair 2009 the English-German monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine / Maschine Mensch” was launched and officially presented to the public (hall 4.2, booth G402). The book is published by SpringerWienNewYork. SpringerWienNewYork is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global scientific publisher with 60 publishing houses in 20 countries in Europe, Asia and the USA. Springer
Frankfurt Book Fair (14 to 18 October) is the most important marketplace for books worldwide with more than 7,300 exhibitors from 100 countries, c. 300,000 visitors and 10,000 journalists.
Frankfurt Book Fair




October 2-4, 2009

NY Art Book Fair 2009

At the NY Art Book Fair 2009 the English-German monograph “Fritz Kahn – Man Machine / Maschine Mensch” was officially presented to the public in New York City.

NY Art Book Fair is the annual fair of contemporary printed matter on art offered for sale by over 200 international publishers and booksellers.
NY Art Book Fair




October 1, 2009

The FASEB Journal

The cover image and article in the October issue of The FASEB Journal features “The Biology of Cooking Aromas” from the third volume of “Das Leben des Menschen”, a set of five books published by Fritz Kahn from 1922 to 1931. – FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) is composed of 23 societies with more than 65,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. 
FASEB Journal




September 30, 2009

Fontblog

Fontblog, German online newsforum for the creative media scene operated by FontShop, published a fictitious interview (German). Readers of the Fontblog were asked to guess the person interviewed (Fritz Kahn) to win one of three books.
Interview (full article in German)

“Beautiful Kahn monograph”
The New York Times
(Style Magazine, The Moment)
“A fascinating volume”
SPIEGEL Online
“Magician of popular science”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“A fascinating book”
Ronald S. Lauder
“The book on Kahn is compelling and inspiring.”
Denis Scheck, German literary critic
“This book is fascinating – not only for sexologists.”
Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer,
sex therapist
“This book is a lucky strike!”
Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen, physician, German comedian
“It looks great!”
Eric R. Kandel, brain scientist,
Nobel prize laureate
““A fascinating book, full of remarkable images, with a unique and important story to tell, and simply but beautifully designed.”
Christopher Collier, director, Collier International
“A terrific tribute to a pioneering master of visualization.”
GK VanPatter, CoFounder Humantific
“Fritz Kahn – Man Machine is blowing my mind!”
Candy Chang, Designer, Urban Planner, TED Fellow
“What a remarkable, beautiful, and inspiring book!”
Roger Willemsen, publicist, author, essayist
“A unique rediscovery”
Frankfurter Rundschau
“I’ve got a treasure on my desk, hot off the presses, a design monograph.”
Jürgen Siebert, director FontShop
“The more I look and read the more I can’t understand why the book wasn’t available up to now. Everyone should have it!” Alessio Leonardi, designer
“It’s gorgeous!”
Vanessa Gould, filmmaker
“The amazing cutaway diagrams of German scientist, gynecologist and author Fritz Kahn finally get their due in a new book. Do not miss this.”
Michael Bierut, designer, Pentagram partner, member of The Design Observer Group
“An exceptional monograph” Slanted
“The Kahn book is really wonderful.”
Deutsches Ärzteblatt
“perfectly designed volume”
Alex Gross, painter and illustrator