This was published 7 years ago
Carl Nielsen obituary: Pioneer of industrial design enjoyed sharing his knowledge with students
By Geoff Fitzpatrick
CARL NIELSEN
Designer
30-6-1930 – 30-7-2016
Carl Nielsen, a pioneering giant in Australian design who has died aged 86, has left an impressive and significant legacy.
Carl Nielsen.
He was born in Randwick, NSW, and a short time later the family moved to Melbourne, where Carl attended Scotch College. He enrolled in the Industrial Design Diploma at Melbourne Technical College (later RMIT University).
On graduating he returned to Sydney and pursued his interest in photography, designed and built furniture and joined Amalgamated Wireless Australia (AWA), before travelling overseas to work for UK appliance companies.
Returning to Australia, he opened the small office of Carl Nielsen & Associates (NDA) in 1962 in North Sydney, and claimed to be one of the first independent industrial design consultancies to operate in Sydney. By 1982 Nielsen Design Associates had developed into a highly regarded multi-disciplinary design practice, offering services in graphics, interior design and model-making, as well as industrial design.
Nielsen was one of the early members of the Society of Designers for Industry (later to become the Industrial Design Institute of Australia (IDIA). He was invited to become its second federal president. When the Commonwealth Government founded the Industrial Design Council of Australia (IDCA), he was invited to join it.
In the 1960s, he did some part-time teaching on the Industrial Design postgraduate diploma course at the University of NSW. In 1974, when the NSW Government conducted an inquiry into art and design education, Nielsen was on the investigating committee.
The Indesign Luminary Archive, in 2004, stated: "The final outcome of this investigation was the establishment of a new College of Advanced Education. This was the Sydney College of the Arts (SCA), founded in 1976."
Nielsen was asked to head up the Industrial Design Department, which he did for a year (while also running NDA), becoming principal lecturer on a fractional full-time, in effect part-time, basis. "I've never seen myself as an academic, [but] I was getting pretty involved in education and I saw in it an opportunity to really make some change in the system."
He pursued these two careers in tandem for some years. When the Federal Government abolished Colleges of Advanced Education – leaving only Colleges of Technical and Further Education (TAFES) and universities – the design school of SCA amalgamated with the NSW Institute of Technology.
In 1988, it became the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), with Nielsen as associate professor of the Industrial Design Program within a new faculty of Design, Architecture and Building. (The art school was subsumed into the University of Sydney.)
The Luminary Archive also notes: "Some of the most well-known products designed in the NDA office in the 1960s and '70s are still around today. The company's design for the Cafe Bar was innovative, effective and timely and was so successful that it became an almost ubiquitous addition to offices and factories around the country.
"The Optima Chair for Sebel is another example. The innovative design for this stackable upholstered chair meant that it required no specialist upholstery skills in its manufacture. It is still produced locally and under licence in several countries overseas.
"In 1981 NDA began work for the Department of Main Roads, (now RTA) on a design for the pedestrian push-button units found on traffic lights. By eliminating switching failure problems caused by water ingress and vandalism, the design has proved a lasting success. The units remain in use here and in many cities around the world."
In 1985 Nielsen embarked on a Master of Arts degree, which he was awarded in 1987. As part of the course requirements, he wrote a dissertation called Industrial Design in Australia, based on an extensive questionnaire to about 380 Australian manufacturing companies. Sadly, he said: "All it did was reinforce my notion that industrial design wasn't generally seen as a major input to industry.
"Even today, too many companies look upon design as a cost, not an investment, whereas the design of their product is really what their business is all about."
At SCA and UTS, Nielsen introduced fourth-year students to "the business" of being an industrial designer. "I literally ran the class the way I ran the business [at NDA]. I introduced a work experience program. I used to encourage very close contact with the students and I felt my biggest input was in having discussions with them about any issue they might raise. It was never 'chalk and talk', it was conversation."
Nielsen always enjoyed teaching, and in 1999, in acknowledgement of his "debt" to the students and staff at UTS, he established the Carl Nielsen Professional Development Award – a $2000 study/travel grant to be awarded annually to an Industrial Design graduate student.
Douglas Tomkin, the current development director at UTS, said: "Carl was valued highly by both staff and students alike. He was dedicated and serious about design education."
Adam Laws, CEO of Nielsen Design, spoke warmly of Nielsen and his wife Judy, and has carried their principles forward as inspiring founders of the practice. Former work colleague and lifetime friend Don Goodwin was effusive in his praise of Nielsen and the pioneering work of the practice.
Dr Brandon Gien, Good Design Australia's CEO, remembers Nielsen as one of the "kindest and most approachable of people".
Nielsen was a founding councillor of the Australian Design Academy, was elected a life fellow of the Design Institute of Australia (1991), established the Carl Nielsen Professional Development Award (1999), was appointed honorary adjunct professor at UTS (2000 to 2003) and inducted into the Design Institute's Hall of Fame (2008).
He died peacefully after a long illness with Judy by his side.