Robert Hoffmann

German designer Robert Hoffmann was born in Berlin in 1979. He studied Architecture at the Technical University in Berlin from 2001 to 2002, before switching his focus to design. He graduated from the Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaft und Kunst in Hildesheim, Germany in 2008 with a degree in metal design. He founded his own studio later that year after moving back to Berlin, where he continues to live and work.

Hoffmann’s designs are unified by their clear and confident lines; the elegantly refined color palettes and materials; and the small flashes of experimentation that keep his pieces from being strictly minimal in style. His aesthetic is defined primarily by a preference for geometric forms and metal in all its variations. Hoffmann’s strong background in the craft of metalwork is evident in the precise and polished finish of pieces like the Nautik (2015) standing lamp with its impeccable matte aluminum and powder coated steel construction. The Modular Light Wall (2012-2014) demonstrates the designer’s more playful side; the copper, bronze, aluminum, and painted steel cases are artfully arranged to look slightly haphazard and leak light through angular openings in the outer shell.

In 2011, Hoffmann was nominated for the German Design Prize newcomer award and also took home a SaloneSatellite Award for his Modular Light (2008-2011) that allows users to rearrange the frame of the light into different forms, offering increased or diminished illumination. Hoffmann has exhibited widely, including at d3 CONTEST in Cologne (2011); Talente, Munich (2011); Design Miami Basel (2011); Salone Satellite at Salone del Mobile (2011, 2012, 2015, 2017); and at private galleries like Karena Schuessler Gallery of Contemporary Design in Berlin and Eva Maisch Gallery in Würzburg, Germany.