2013

KaVo Zahnarztstuhl Regie 1520 A

Works

This installation takes the form of a celebratory showroom for the innovative treatment unit of German dental company KaVo. As a focus on a technical feature of dentistry, this is the first in a series of projects that explore the field in a vocational as well as scientific capacity.

First released in December of 1980, the 1520 A system showcased a series of pioneering features of the company, subsequently winning several design awards. Expanding from the core of a reclining chair, the model features a protruding stem with an extendable table and aerial light fixture, as well as a side-wagon which houses various drill and nozzle fittings. In this area, KaVo’s higher drill speeds were of key innovation, allowing for the use of diamond-head tools, hence drastically reducing patient treatment times. This particular model finds its origins in the 1965 prototype 1025, through which KaVo also became the forerunner of ergonomic evolution in Europe – simply by allowing patients to lie down during their session. Consequently, KaVo was to acquire C.A.D. of Italy (a manufacturer of patient chairs), to enrich research in dental chair production.

Abbreviated as “Regie”, the 1520 A unit is here displayed in cross-section, a technique common for the display of technical devices in order to reveal inner workings. The longitudinal dissecting of the unit into two distinct pieces plays with the chair as a bulky yet complex mass, creating intricate shapes that in turn flirt with an abstraction. Accompanied by the company’s original operating and promotional material, the arrangement is reframing the industrial branding and communications ethos – pursuing potential in its language as a basis for new corollary.

“KaVo Zahnarztstuhl Regie 1520 A” is prelude to a new book produced in direct collaboration with dentists, under the title “Tooth: Twenty Personal Accounts”. For this book, twenty dentists from an international spectrum are being asked to contribute reflections on their practice, showing the diverse contexts under which they have prospered. From Chile to Japan, and from Zambia to Finland, personal narratives are to reveal human as well as medical aspects of the profession. In effect the book seeks to build a sort of anthropological compendium of dentistry.

KaVo Zahnarztstuhl Regie 1520 A

KaVo Zahnarztstuhl Regie 1520 A

KaVo Zahnarztstuhl Regie 1520 A

KaVo Zahnarztstuhl Regie 1520 A

KaVo Zahnarztstuhl Regie 1520 A