Wolfgang von Wersin

In 1909 he began working as a designer for numerous firms, including the Behr furniture factory and the Meissen porcelain manufacturers. In 1929, he assumed the directorship of the Neue Sammlung established in Munich in 1925, the department for artisan art at the National Museum – and remained there until his illegal dismissal by the national socialists in 1934. In 1956 he wrote The Book of Rectangles, Spatial Law and Gestures of The Orthogons Described, in which he describes a set of 12 dynamic rectangles he calls orthogons.

Wolfgang von Wersin studied at Technical University of Munich. The recorded working language is German. Places of work recorded in the authority are Munich and Linz. Work by Wolfgang von Wersin is recorded in the collections of Museum of Modern Art. Distinctions recorded are Bavarian Order of Merit.

Wersin's early designs are characterized by East-Asian forms; however, he eventually developed a style free of any kind clear of influence (including rural folk art) and achieved a timelessly classical style of great objectivity, revealed above all in articles for everyday use, such as porcelain, glass, tableware fabric and wallpaper.

Wolfgang Von Wersin's book about the Orthogons gives detailed information about how to construct and use a special set of 12 inter-related rectangles to create a design. They are similar to what Jay Hambidge called dynamic rectangles. The set of 12 Orthogons is determined by expanding a square through a series of arcs and cross-points until another square is formed on top, an exact duplication of the original square. Wersin also explains in the book how Orthogons can be detected and used in architecture, ceramics, furniture and works of art. The value of using Orthogons is explained in an excerpt that includes an extraordinary copy of text from the year 1558 (Renaissance). Diagrams of seven of the 12 orthogons are accompanied by a passage from the 1558 text cautioning that careful attention be given as the "ancient" architects believed "nothing excels these proportions" as "a thing of the purest abstraction." One of the orthogons, the hemidiagon, is apparent in the designs of synagogues in ancient Galilee. Mathematical ratios and another source for the term Orthogon: A well-known Orthogon, the Auron (golden rectangle), has been employed to create a range of designs from posters and chapels (Mies van der Rohe), to chairs. and glassware The Auron is related to musical harmony, in that the golden ratio is among the most dissonant musical intervals, and is also included in discussions on sacred architecture and sacred geometry as well as information regarding dynamic symmetry and aesthetics. According to Von Wersin, "The Orthogons are without exception root figures and are all irrational numbers. The calculations for measure relations of the Orthogons are based, without exception, on the Pythagorean doctrine." Examples of these root figure relations are: the Diagon relation is 1: square root of 2, the Sixton is 1: square root of 3 and the Doppelquadrat is 1: square root of 4. Mathematical ratios for all twelve Orthogons: Ratios for all twelve Orthogons: Quadrat 1:1 – Hemidiagon 1:1.118 – Trion 1:1.154 – Quadriagon 1:1.207 – Biauron 1:1.236 – Penton 1:1.376 – Diagon 1:1.414 – Bipenton 1:1.46 – Hemiolion 1:1.5 – Auron 1:1.618 – Sixton 1:1.732 – Doppelquadrat 1:2 (Quadrat is the German word for square, and Doppelquadrat for double square.)