The World of Forms

In 1922, the naturalist and Nobel prize-winning physicist Wilhelm Ostwald published his morphology “The Harmony of Forms”. Until 1928, four portfolios followed this publication under the title “The World of Forms”, in which Ostwald extended his doctrine to a form of explicit programming. The 240 series of shapes printed on transparent sheets can be freely combined. Ostwald’s formal doctrine influenced not only the Werkbund, but also the Bauhaus and the Dutch art movement De Stijl. Even though his theory of shapes was enthusiastically adapted by Moholy-Nagy, as well as later in the concrete art of Max Bill, Karl Gerstner and especially Hans Hinterreiter, among many others, it has been largely forgotten today—in contrast to Wilhelm Ostwald’s color theory. The publication unites and comments the works between the poles of ornament and art, system and construction, and scientific and artistic determinations of form.