Designer
Piet Hein
Piet Hein (1905–1996) was a Danish polymath — mathematician, inventor, designer, writer and poet — born in Copenhagen and a direct descendant of the 17th-century Dutch naval figure Piet Pieterszoon Hein. He studied at the Institute for…
Biography
Background
Piet Hein (1905–1996) was a Danish polymath — mathematician, inventor, designer, writer and poet — born in Copenhagen and a direct descendant of the 17th-century Dutch naval figure Piet Pieterszoon Hein. He studied at the Institute for Theoretical Physics (later the Niels Bohr Institute) of the University of Copenhagen and at the Technical University of Denmark; Yale awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1972.
Signature Style
Hein is best known for the superellipse, a curve between ellipse and rectangle. His winning 1959 proposal for the roundabout at Sergels Torg in Stockholm was based on it, and he went on to apply it to furniture, dishes and the solid "superegg". He also wrote thousands of short poems, the grooks, under the pseudonym Kumbel.
Notable Works
- Superellipse™ table with Bruno Mathsson, produced by Fritz Hansen
- Superegg and superellipse housewares
- Soma cube and the board game Hex
- Grooks (20 volumes, 1940–1963)
Legacy
His grooks became a form of resistance during the German occupation of Denmark, and his work was regularly featured in Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column in Scientific American.