Dieter Rams is said to have quickly withdrawn his hand when he realized who was about to shake it - Matteo Thun.

This is how Thun himself described the encounter between the two designers in Frankfurt.

It must have happened in 2010, when a major exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts was devoted to Rams.

Thun returned the favor a year later.

In an interview, he said his emotional attachment to a Braun Rams alarm clock is similar to what he "would have to a dead gray mouse that wakes me up every morning."

Matthew Alexander

Deputy head of department in the features section.

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Such an aggressive statement, also wrapped in a crooked image, is atypical for Thun, who otherwise moves through the world in a friendly and stylish manner.

It leads to the beginning of his career.

It began in 1980, when the South Tyrolean – whose real name was Matthäus Antonius Maria Graf von Thun und Hohenstein – as a member of the Memphis group turned away from post-war functionalism, whose most important representative was Rams, who was twenty years his senior.

Thun and his colleagues brought postmodernism to design: they designed brightly colored objects such as shelves, cups and espresso machines whose form was anything but derived from function.

According to Thun, Rams was also invited to the premiere vernissage of Memphis in Milan, but he didn't come.

Busy star, modest designer – and a professional pilot

Memphis represented the entry of fantasy, irony and fiction into design.

Thun's design of a phallus-shaped vase called Danubio was the culmination of the design excesses of the designer group.

Its head was Ettore Sottsass, for whom Thun began to work after studying art and architecture.

He did this without pay, he earned his living as a pilot of small airplanes that pulled advertising banners behind them.

Sottsass later broke up, allegedly because Thun got married.

Sottsass is said to have said that a husband cannot work properly.

Thun has learned to deal confidently with this setback.

To this day he describes his teacher as the ultimate universal genius.

He learned everything from him.

Thun, a sporty, energetic and adventurous man, left Memphis after just four years.

A phase of life in the service of others followed.

For a few years he was chief designer at the watch manufacturer Swatch, for which he is ashamed today because he is responsible for many tons of plastic waste.

The designer, who still works without a computer to this day, made another turn around the year 2000, leaving the world of mass production and colorful provocations behind.

He condensed his commitment to traditional craftsmanship and sustainability into the slogan “No Design”.

His designs for products ranging from spoons to shop fittings are no longer labeled as such;

Thun rejects the hype about designer stars.

However, he does so from a privileged position: for his creations to be recognized as such,

In terms of style, Thun, who adapts flexibly to customer requests with around eighty employees in his Milan studio, now tends to be more discreet, in classic shapes and restrained colours.

The world has become optically too loud for him.

In recent years he has been more prominent as an architect, especially of hotels, clinics and holiday homes, preferably in a rounded shape with a wooden facade.

The target group is a clientele that prefers discreet luxury that promises an ecological lifestyle without sacrificing comfort.

Thun turns seventy this Friday.