The collection
White rectangular plastic record player with wooden side panels. It has a clear plastic lid, a white and grey turntable, and grey knobs and buttons.
1956

Radio and Record Player, Phonosuper SK5

Designed by
Hans Gugelot (1920–65) and Dieter Rams (born 1932)
Material
Enameled metal, plywood, Plexiglas
Produced by
Braun AG, Frankfurt, Germany
Dimensions
24 x 59 x 29.5 cm

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Liliane and David M. Stewart Collection, gift of Barry Friedman and Patricia Pastor, D86.196.1

Gugelot and Rams were architects and industrial designers who began to work at Braun in the mid-1950s. Gugelot had taught at the Ulm School of Design, founded in 1950, and both this school and the Braun company followed the principles of the Bauhaus design school.

Braun’s modern aesthetic is seen in the Phonosuper SK5’s transparent Plexiglas cover, its abstract design with a clearly defined place for each element and its lack of superfluous ornament. It had been common for electronics to be disguised as furniture for home use, but Braun, with its iconic functionalist designs, transformed each into its own straightforward product form.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, photo: Denis Farley.