Wilhelm Wagenfeld spoke of collaboration in the factories with respect to that decisive step that only few designers after Peter Behrens managed so convincingly as he did. In the circle of German glass designers he was the one who, under the influence of the Bauhaus, single-mindedly followed the course from applied crafts to industry. In the large-scale operations of the glass industry at Schott & Gen. and the Vereinigten Lausitzer Glaswerke he gained considerable influence in the reorganization of the production programme. The Schott and VLG glass manufacturers became a model case of the unity of art and technology that Gropius called for. They are the result of the joint efforts of designers, technicians and workermen. Apart from marketing and consumer interests, Wagenfeld's simple and elegant glasses are new industrial products which, in refined use, are meant to accompany and foster the civilization process of modern society. Apart from Wagenfeld's creativity, the book also analyses for the first time the development of the modern glass industry (engineering technology, relation to the American industry etc.) and presents works of leading glass designers, among them Bruno Mauder and Richard Süssmuth.
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