Luigi (Lutz) Colani
born 1928 Berlin, Germany
| 1946 | studied painting and sculpture at the Berlin College of Visual Arts |
| 1948 | studied aerodynamics in Paris; carried out futuristic studies for car and motorcycle magazines |
| 1952 - 53 | “high-speed” and material research for the Douglas aircraft company in California |
| 1954 | returned to Europe; received the Goldene Rose award for a Fiat car-body; worked for Alfa-Romeo, Lancia, VW, and BMW |
| 1972 | experimental design for Thyssen, Boeing, Rosenthal, Rockwell (NASA), Villeroy & Boch |
| 1973 | established a Colani Design Center in Japan |
| 1983 | moved to Japan |
| 1988 | professor emeritus at the University of Bremen |
| 1990 | architectural projects in Japan and Thailand |
| 1992 | first extensive Colani retrospective in Dortmund, Germany; previous exhibitions in Japan and Switzerland |
| 1993 | designed computer hardware for VOBIS |
| 1995 | opened a Colani Design Center in Lünen, Germany |
| 2003 | designs uniforms for the Hamburg police force; designs the airplane tt-62, designs the futuristic Speedster Shark vehicle |
| 2004 | speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos |
| 2005 | “Colani Back in Japan” exhibition at the Museum for Art and Design, Kyoto Institute of Technology |
| 2007 | collects “Grand Prix du Design” from the International Automobile Festival at the Grand Palais in Paris; FX Lifetime Contribution Award, London, and participates in the “Translating Nature” exhibition, Design Museum, London |
| 2008 | opens a design studio in Beihai, China |
| Colani’s designs, which ranged from airplanes to furnishings and tableware, have helped popularize organic design. |
