Naef X Bauhaus Archive Spinning Top Optical Mixer of Colors Wooden Toy Designer Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack

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The Spinning top optical color-mixer was designed by Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack as a didactic toy at the Bauhaus, in 1924, which … Read more The Spinning top optical color-mixer was designed by Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack as a didactic toy at the Bauhaus, in 1924, which is possibly the most important academy of art during the time between the wars. Hirschfeld-Mack demonstrates how the rotation of the gyrating top produces the optical mixing of the colors printed upon the laid-on cardboard discs.

This spinning top has been reproduced in the joinery workshop of the Bauhaus since about 1924. Nowadays is produced by Naef Spiele (Swiss) in cooperation with the Bauhaus Museum of Berlin, Germany.
It is large and it can be spun with one hand or between the palms of both hands for a long-lasting rotation. Aspects of color theory can be experienced with the interchangeable seven cardboard discs. The color circles according to Goethe, Schopenhauer, and Hölzel can be rotated and then compared with each other. Information describing the phenomenon can be found on the back of the discs.

Manufacturer: Naef Spiele
In collaboration with the Bauhaus Archive (Berlin)
Toy: Bauhaus Spinning Top optical mixer of colors
The set contains one spinning top with 7 cardboard discs
Designer: Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack
Originally designed in the year: 1924
Handmade in Germany
Material: wood with metal tip, cardboard discs
Age: 6+

CONDITION: NEW IN ITS ORIGINAL BOX
The game comes in a beautiful box and is the perfect gift!

HEIGHT: 3.93inches / 10cm
DIAMETER: 2.75inches / 7cm

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Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack was born in Frankfurt/Main in 1893. He had his academic training with Holzel in Stuttgart and, after finishing his studies he worked at the Bauhaus where his main activities lay in the problems of colors and color projections (Reflektorische Lichtspiele - play of light and its reflection). He continued his teaching up to the time of his emigration from Germany and later in England at other avant-garde schools. After 1942, he worked in Australia where he died in Sydney in 1965.

The BAUHAUS (1919 - 1933) was important beyond the short time of its existence, both on account of the educational methods of art that it developed and its influence on the styling of architecture, design, and painting. Architects like Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Hannes Meyer, Ludwig Hilberseimer, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and painters/artists like Josef Albers, Johannes Itten, Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Georg Muche and Oskar Schlemmer belonged to the teaching staff of the Bauhaus. The integration of art into life and the merging of the artist into the industrialized society were their common goal.


ABOUT Naef: The Swiss cabinetmaker and furniture builder Kurt Naef began to produce his timeless, high-quality wooden games in the late 1950s, developing them on his own and with designers. He reproduced several classic games by celebrated designers of the Bauhaus. Naef's games are represented in the collections of important museums, for example in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and Japan.
The design language of minimalism and functionality runs through the entire Naef assortment. Naef stands for top-class toys made of wood fascinating both children and adults.

Kurt Naef's games are the "Rolls Royce" of wooden games. In a fast-moving and electronically oriented time, they maintain their permanent position in the marketplace with timeless design-loving and high-quality workmanship. The wide range of products primarily consists of puzzles and games of skill, which enable the player to experience and train in spatial imagination, geometric principles, and coordination.

Naef toys are handcrafted in small numbers and undergo a level of care rarely found with other manufacturers – when it comes to cutting and hand-sanding the wood, which comes from sustainable Central European timber farming. The exactness of the angles and planes allows us to experience the beauty of geometry in a satisfying way that we are denied with lesser quality materials and fabrications.

In the last 6 decades, Naef Spiele AG widened its range of products through collaboration with well-known designers such as Peer Clahsen, Verner Panton, Xavier de Clippeleir, Jo Niemeyer, and Yasuo Aizawa, among others.

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