Vision and Legend': Bang and Olufsen Exhibition in Copenhagen - 15 June 2000
Bang and Olufsen products have been exhibited around the world. In 1978, New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) held a special exhibition consisting of 39 Bang and Olufsen products. 'Vision and Legend' is the first exhibition to show an entire range of the most significant products during Bang and Olufsen's first 75 years.
This must be a Bang and Olufsen...it cannot be anything else!
"Each of the new products we create must, in my opinion, contain a part of the future. We must strive all the time to move borders, to venture beyond the known and the traditional. Bang and Olufsen practises the balance between form and function. It is exactly at this point of the equilibrium that our brand and culture become obvious and make our customer say: This must be a Bang and Olufsen, it cannot be anything else!" Ole Terndrup, Senior Specialist/Concept Developer, Idealand
The exhibition: 'Vision and Legend', which was on view from 16 June to 17 September 2000 celebrated the 75th Anniversary of Bang and Olufsen and was opened by Queen Margrete II of Denmark The exhibition showed a long line of products that had been produced by Bang and Olufsen over its first three-quarters of a century. It also exhibited examples of how the many ideas for both products and advertising campaigns were born; how the Marcel Breuer Chair inspired Peter Bang to design the Hyperbo 5 RG Steel integrated radio/record player of 1934, and how the 'Sure of Success' posters used images from successful movies using well-known actresses of the day such as Esther Williams and Sonja Henie.
The exhibition was held in Copenhagen's new Danish Design Centre, designed by Henning Larsen.
Vision and the Legend Exhibition
" They say love never dies...
Especially when it comes to Bang & Olufsen, it would appear. This would certainly explain what the grand old team Jens Bang, Jorgen Palshoj, Jorgen Michaelsen and Mogens Ringdal have been up to at the new head office in Struer in recent months. The rallying point is the major Bang & Olufsen exhibition being held at the new Danish Design Centre building on H.C. Andersens Boulevard in Copenhagen next summer.
The story starts almost two years ago, when Jens Bang and Jorgen Palshoj decided to team up to record their Bang & Olufsen memoirs for posterity, having already committed a fair amount of Bang & Olufsen's history to paper quite independently of each other.
Their plans really began to take shape in April last year when the two met up in a tiny French village up in the Pyrenees close to the Spanish border. Here, far from the home of Bang & Olufsen in Denmark's Quistrup and Struer, they came up with a history of the company that could serve as the starting point for an exhibition, catalogue, website and more.
The result was a storyboard for the "The Vision and the Legend" exhibition due to open on June 15 next year. The storyboard and exhibition tell of Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen's ideas and of the vision that has helped shape the legend over the years.
They also tell of the key events and decisions that have helped Bang & Olufsen to survive in an age that has seen countless other companies in the business closing their doors. The spot-on dates and product descriptions come courtesy of the extensive materials gathered and catalogued by Ejvind Johansen at the Bang & Olufsen Museum.
The exhibition itself, which is being held in conjunction with the Danish Design Centre, has been designed by Jorgen Michaelsen and Mogens Ringdal, who have been behind many major Bang & Olufsen exhibitions in Denmark and abroad over the years. Their experience and skill in structuring exhibitions, presenting products, lighting, demonstrations - the kind of thing you just can't pick up from books are being called on once again, to the delight of Bang & Olufsen staff old and new.
Which is how it came to pass that four Bang & Olufsen veterans, of whom three at any rate had completely different plans for their retirement, ended up together again, caught up in a love of the old company. So maybe they're right, true love really doesn't die ..."
(Taken from Beolink magazine 6, 1999)
Created: 24th January 2007
Modified: 2nd April 2007
