Making the utilitarian an aesthetic asset

Drain covers. Do you ever notice them?

Me neither.

Until I went to Germany. At the first town, Koblenz, I noticed the design on the drain covers.

Koblenz

Was the boy vomiting? Spitting out the water because it is awful? Neither seemed appropriate for the local water board.

I found out the story of the Schlängel and have previously posted about the statue of the spitting boy.

Then I kept my eyes peeled at each town for their water covers.

Sure enough, I spotted different covers at the next town, Trier.

Trier

Then more:

Bremen

Goslar

Wildeshausen

Quedlinburg

Mainz

I love the attention to detail. Decorating the utilitarian, and making it into art.

I love the branding of each town. Taking an image or symbol, and putting it, in a subtle and artist way, on things all around us. Things we normally ignore as we stride or dawdle around.

The symbols don’t have that appearance of being designed by marketing copywriters or designers that change with fashion. They are something that stand for more than marketing. Something that comes from the town’s history and has, and will, stand for centuries.

I get that symbols can be problematic – who has been overlooked, excluded, repressed; who does not feel a symbol represents them. Maybe it helps that Germany is largely a mono-culture? I couldn’t imagine what symbol could be placed on the drains of Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane and whether the symbol would be accepted by most, and be one that would be acceptable in years and decades hence.

All these little details add to the beauty of each town. There’s artwork everywhere.