Surface beauty:

FSB is reinvigorating “its” material aluminium at BAU 2017 with innovative new finishes that have positive implications both visually and in terms of functional engineering. In typically matter-of-fact manner, the Brakel firm uses the term “Blasted Aluminium Colour Anodized” to describe what it brought to the production stage following lengthy development and manufacturing tests: anodised colours in the form of satin matt aluminium finishes blasted with fine shot whose inimitable sheen and pleasant haptic quality lend them an allure of a kind never before seen.

The anodised colours supplied by FSB take as their point of reference the classic metallic “colours” with which the builders’ hardware sector had endeavoured since the 1950s to emulate typical real hardware metals by means of colour-anodised aluminium finishes. What used to be an attractively priced alternative for private builders’ clients unable to afford (or unwilling to buy) door fittings in solid brass or bronze has, however, since established itself as a design option in its own right for architecture and select interior finishing schemes.

Trends discernible in, for instance, car making, where classic silver aluminium hubs are no longer in demand, have also begun to manifest themselves in doors and windows. There is a conscious attempt to relate to the actual metal – “colour” in the sense of “colourful” is out. This is regardless of whether the host surface is deliberately accentuated with a metallic colour/ finish or whether it is to play a more downbeat role – notably in the case of anodised or powder-coated window and facade profiles – as part of a scheme of coordinated shades.

Here, too, the FSB range delivers accents to match: schemes of coordinated shades can be set off by harnessing the reflectance of the hardware’s matt, blasted finish.

In the process, FSB is not confining itself to the real metals referred to and their varying degrees of patination but is also taking account of the commonly adopted facade profile finishes C33 and C35 (EURAS). The new FSB aluminium finishes certainly open up fresh, neverbeforeseen design options at any rate.

The new FSB finishes at a glance:

0310 Blasted Aluminium Brass Anodised
0410 Blasted Aluminium Bronze Anodised
0510 Blasted Aluminium Medium Bronze Anodised (C33/EURAS)
0710 Blasted Aluminium Dark Bronze Anodised (C34)
0810 Blasted Aluminium Black Anodised (C35/EURAS)
2110 Blasted Aluminium Light Bronze Anodised (C31)
2210 Blasted Aluminium Bright Bronze Anodised (C32)

In technical and functional terms, blasting an aluminium surface causes it to be compacted much in the same way as occurs during forging, as a result of which blasted anodised aluminium finishes are somewhat more resistant to knocks and scratches than traditionally worked and anodised aluminium.

History: Aluminium + FSB

From the very beginning, aluminium has been used as a hi-tech material wherever there was a need for both lightness and great durability. Neither space travel, aircraft construction or car making would be conceivable without it; indeed, some key innovations in these sectors would simply not have been possible without it. From the second half of the twentieth century, aluminium started its triumphal march into interior design and design in general. Its technological mystique, pleasant haptic properties and gleaming silvery surface opened up new horizons in the use of metal, notably in interior design, and can even be said to have been instrumental in the ascendancy of stainless steel.

The market is nevertheless now increasingly calling for design alternatives – particularly where conscious points of focus are to be created or clients have had quite enough of the clean optics of stainless steel. The expertise in working aluminium that FSB has amassed since the 1920s continues to underpin a great many FSB handle series in this marvellous material. FSB has perfected the art over the years by means of a complexly modulated form of process organisation that enables the various handle designs to be “worked out” of the material to optimum effect in a mix of manual and industrial production regardless of whether the piece involved is a geometric classic or a moulded-to-the-hand design by Johannes Potente. Hence, not only is every aluminium handle by FSB an item of work “(hand-)made in Germany”, it is also in essence a hand-picked one-off.

Franz Schneider
Brakel GmbH + Co KG

Karin Padinger
Nieheimer Straße 38
33034 Brakel
Germany
Phone: +49 5272 608-201

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