The Bicycle – Cult Object – Design Object

The exhibition puts the topic of bicycle design in the limelight for the first time. The focus is thus on the design and not on the cultural history. No less than 70 examples will be showcased.

Today’s bicycle boom needs to be seen not only against the background of a growing awareness of health issues, sustainability, and environmental protection but also embodies a feeling for life. Be it fast or slow, by the power of one’s own muscles or by an electric motor, the bicycle offers possible solutions for the transportation and mobility problems of our cities; the bicycle changes our leisure time behaviour. No two bicycles are the same, as bicycles are not purely utilitarian objects or just the most widespread means of transport in the world, but also design and cult objects, where technology, function and aesthetics go hand in hand.
Bicycle design is closely bound up with the history of technological innovations.
Bicycle design is certainly not just about the skill of the craftsmen and the art of frame-building, not just the product of ingenious inventors, tinkerers, obsessed or enthusiastic amateurs, as can be seen from the countless designs by aerospace or automobile engineers, such as Paul Jaray, Hermann Klaue or Alex Moulton as well as by industrial designers including Luigi Colani, Richard Sapper, Michael Conrad, Giorgetto Giugiaro, Marc Newson, Christian Zanzotti or Ross Lovegrove.