Reinhold Weiss (b. 1934) is a German designer who trained as both an architect and a carpenter before graduating from the Ulm Academy of Design. In 1959 he began his career at Braun under the direction of Dieter Rams. The HL1C desk fan was Weiss’ first design for Braun and featured a compact cylindrical, ‘squirrel-cage’ electric fan which broke away from the conventional circular cage forms developed by Schuyler Wheeler in the late 19th century and Peter Behrens in the early 20th century. Affordable, easy to use and compact enough to fit on a desk or be wall mounted, the fan appealed to a burgeoning consumer market for domestic goods following the Second World War.

The HL1C is an excellent example of innovation in industrial design and forms a natural complement to its successor, the HL70 desk fan designed by Weiss and Jurgen Greubel and part of the museum’s collection (CIRC.342-1974).