Markus Frenzl: You started your training in a Scandinavian furniture store in the mid-seventies. What was special about MAGAZIN when you first came into contact with it? Stephan Dornhofer: As a young person with an obvious interest in graphics and design, I started there and was immediately fascinated by the things: stacks of Arne Jacobsen chairs, things I didn't know from home - I quickly became addicted to design. In conversations with the traveling salesmen, there was always talk of this "Stuttgart store", MAGAZIN. When I visited MAGAZIN in Stuttgart for the first time at the end of the seventies, there was a great sense of friendliness and openness. When we later came up with our own MAGAZIN idea, the founders were very happy, were very enthusiastic about their store idea and supported us as a matter of course MF: Today it would be a franchise concept! So there were no negotiations about usage rights or licenses? Did the founders earn nothing from this? SD: No, nothing at all. There were no reservations about taking over their own logo, name and business model. That was sensational and incredibly generous. But it also shows their genuine interest in getting a message out into the world. Because of course there was this sense of mission. - When was your first contact with MAGAZIN? MF: In the late eighties on a school trip to Stuttgart. I bought a pair of red scissors and a Japanese pen, I remember that very well, at horrendous prices for me as a schoolboy. But for me, the store was above all the realization that design is not just about postmodernism and "matte black", but can also mean the transfer of things from other contexts. There were the objects that you found in the basement on the industrial shelves: simple pressed glass, objects from industrial supplies, unpretentious but good, durable things. SD: MAGAZIN was a great expansion of their aesthetic field for many. For many Stuttgart students of architecture and design - and also far beyond the regional borders - it was part of their cultural education. The experience of knocking sacred things off their pedestals. The experience you had with the red scissors and the Japanese pen. It wasn't design with a gold rim, but an extension of everyday culture. It was common to go to MAGAZIN on Saturdays to stock up on good products, just like at the weekly market. Incidentally, this can still be seen in our stores today.

SD: Of course, this was also reflected and could be seen in the product world. But MAGAZIN was not a consumer advisory service, with all the sense and joy of product-related information, but rather focused early on the mercantile in order to have a social impact. MF: Are these motives still valid today? Shouldn't the focus now be much more on new cultural patterns rather than always on new products? For example, not reacting to the waste problem of coffee-to-go cups with reusable cups that you then sell in stores, but instead recharging the coffee house culture? I often miss these considerations when thinking about sustainability or circular design, which have often become buzzwords for marketing. - As a retailer, you naturally want to sell. But with your standards of choice, sustainability, longevity and conscious consumption, it can't be your goal for everyone to buy six new chairs a year. How do you deal with this discrepancy? SD: By talking about it openly: no product is sustainable! Of course, as retailers we are in a dilemma. We want to sell products. But our aim is to make these products as good as possible. So that they fit into our times, that they meet ecological requirements, that they are designed with current social issues in mind. We try to make our contribution to this and, on this occasion, we stand shoulder to shoulder with our shareholder Manufactum. We therefore see ourselves as having a responsibility that is critical of consumption. We want to make sustainability a matter of course and not turn it into a marketing bubble, as is now widespread. We look at the interrelationships and try to keep the impact as low as possible.

MF: I don't think the public is aware of the role of manufacturers or retailers in the development process. There is still the idea that an individual receives a commission, makes scribbles, builds a few models and - bang - the finished design is there. I think it's a shame that far too little is said about design processes in which designs are discarded and rethought and clients completely change the design again. Many designers even emphasize that they need specifications regarding the material or production possibilities in order to get into the design process. Design is not just about the often-cited inspiration, but also about restriction. We would be doing design a favor if we communicated more often that it is a process and a team effort! SD: Design is not, as is often misrepresented, Philippe Starck drawing his sketch on a napkin on an Air France flight to New York, as he did in the Concorde era. It's hard work. We bring our knowledge to this development process on an equal footing, without which designers would be lost and have no chance. You also need to know how logistics work and which listing criteria a product has to meet in order to overcome hurdles in quality management. This is where we, as old hands, see our responsibility in working with young designers.

MF: "Designer chair" is absurdly always meant in a derogatory way. People don't realize that there are no non-designed chairs. The authorship is merely emphasized differently by the manufacturers. This has also led to the strange understanding that design is an add-on, the aestheticization of an existing product. I think this perception often has to do with a misunderstanding of the anti-functionalist movements of the 1980s. Design is not a style category. Do your customers differentiate between author design and your own productions? SD: Good question. But I'm happy to accept your request to communicate these processes more proactively to the outside world. We deliberately don't want to communicate in an elitist way, not out of an intellectual exaggeration. If we complain that there is too little broad understanding, we have to do something about it. If we write in our catalog that we make an effort, that it is difficult to find a good, new product, that design is also work in a dirty coal cellar, then that promotes awareness. With the topics of repairing and sustainability, I can only reach customers who are interested. And who don't just see an economic advantage in it. Everything is connected and things are complex. But drilling the thick boards is much nicer than the plywood! The conversation between Markus Frenzl and Stephan Dornhofer took place online in April 2021. This text is an excerpt from the book "50 Jahre 50 Produkte - Designgeschichte(n) erzählt von MAGAZIN". Available now.