It is with great sadness we have been informed that Bang &
Olufsen designer David Lewis has passed away after being
ill only a very short time. David Lewis has worked as a
freelance designer for Bang & Olufsen for now more than
four decades. He was educated as industrial designer in the
UK, but met his wife Marianne early on and moved to Denmark
where he has lived ever since. He started as a designer at
Henning Moldenhawer, who was a Bang & Olufsen designer in
the 1960s. After some years working for Henning Moldenhawer
he started up his own design studio in Copenhagen, where he
continued to work with Bang & Olufsen designs.
David Lewis has had a significant impact on Bang & Olufsen
over the years and he has become known for thinking in
unconventional directions. His design process was his own -
he did not ask why, but why not.
This led to a number of innovative designs such as
BeoVision MX TV - the first TV where the loudspeakers were
placed below the screen. BeoSound Ouverture, the first
upright music system with glass doors opening up when the
hand approaches. BeoSound 9000, a CD changer with a magical
glass lid and six CDs and a vast number of ground breaking
features. BeoLab 8000, the speaker icon that found its
inspiration in an organ pipe on a flea market.
Over the years, many of David Lewis' designs have been
awarded with international awards, and several of them are
part of the permanent collection at MOMA in New York. Also
a vast number of designs have become world famous for their
appearance in many of the big Hollywood blockbusters.
David Lewis had an incredible design talent and a very
humble yet persistent approach to the task as a designer.
He enjoyed the interaction he had with technicians and
engineers. He was always looking for the perfect solution
and was relentless in his demands to the Bang & Olufsen
engineers. He challenged conventions, and it was not
important to him that people liked his designs, as long as
they were not indifferent to them.
He loved a good discussion, felt a great responsibility as
a Bang & Olufsen designer." We have to surpass ourselves
again and again", was one of his mantras. He often turned
things upside down and sometimes that included himself as
well. In his studio you could find him underneath a TV
looking at it from below to see what it looked like from
that angle. Not even the smallest detail was left to
chance, if he had his way.
He had great ambitions for Bang & Olufsen's design, while
being a modest and very private person himself. He was very
much alive with a great sense of humour and an almost 'West
Jutland' approach to things. Maybe this was one of the
reasons he felt so comfortable in the far West of Denmark,
where Bang & Olufsen is located. He once said with a wink
in his eye that one of the reasons why Bang & Olufsen was
still successful was that it was placed so far out West.
"In Struer they have a tradition for hard work and they
need to find their own solutions to problems, and quite
frankly, what else is there to do in Struer!"
With the death of David Lewis and era is ending. He will be
duly missed by both colleagues and retailers from all over
the world, but his designs will remain. The David Lewis
design studio in Copenhagen will continue, and with it the
co-operation with Bang & Olufsen as well, under the charge
of Torsten Valeur, who has been head of the design studio
for a number of years now.
Bang & Olufsen A/S is a Denmark-based company engaged in the design, development and marketing of audio and video equipment. The Company supplies primarily music systems, loudspeakers, television sets and multimedia products. Its activities are divided into two business areas: Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B). The B2C area includes two segments: audiovisual (AV), offering audio and video products sold under the Bang & Olufsen brand; and B&O PLAY, which delivers stand-alone, portable products. The B2B business area also consists of Automotive segment, which comprises development, production and sale of sound systems for a range of cars, such as Aston Martin, Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Furthermore, the Company is parent of Bang & Olufsen Group, which operates worldwide.