EOOS

Harald Gründl, Martin Bergmann, Gernot Bohmann | ©Elfie Semotan

Curriculum Vitae

Gernot Bohmann was born in 1968 in Krieglach/Styria, Harald Gründl in 1967 in Vienna, and Martin Bergmann in 1963 in Lienz/East Tyrol.

They studied industrial design together at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and then founded EOOS in 1995. The studio’s name is inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the name of one of the four chariot horses of the sun god Helios.

EOOS developed “Poetical Analysis” as a research tool, which the designers use to investigate rituals, myths, and intuitive imagery and employ as the departure point for their designs. For EOOS, design is a poetical discipline, which oscillates between the realm of the archaic and high-tech.

Today EOOS operates in the fields of furniture and product design for clients such as Alessi, Bene, Bite Beauty, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bulthaup, Carl Hansen & Søn, Dedon, Duravit, Fürstenberg, Geiger, Herman Miller, Hussl, Keilhauer, Lamy, Laufen, Nuki, Poltrona Frau, Walter Knoll, and Zumtobel.

Team

Yuan Fen Chang, Designer | ©Udo Titz

Hannes Stepic, Designer | ©Udo Titz

Liang Cheng, Designer | ©Udo Titz

Nicole Larcher, Office Management | ©Udo Titz

Marie Steinacher, Designer | ©Udo Titz

Exhibitions & Awards

In 2019 EOOS designed the official Austrian contribution to the XXII International Exhibition of La Triennale di Milano with the project “Circular Flows: The Toilet Revolution”. 2016 EOOS represented Austria at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, la Biennale die Venezia, with their project “social furniture”. The MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art – celebrated the work of EOOS with its first major solo exhibition in 2015. In this context the monograph “by: EOOS” (Birkhäuser/Basel) was published. In 2007 the EOOS founders were nominated by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) and readers of the daily newspaper “Die Presse” as “Austrians of the Year”.

To date EOOS has received over 200 international design awards, among them the Italian design prize “Compasso d’Oro” for the auditorium seating system “Kube”, produced by Poltrona Frau, the “Black Bee Award” of the Triennale di Milano, the “Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany” in gold, 38 Red Dot awards, 19 IF awards, 18 Good Design awards, and several Wallpaper, Elle Deco, and AZ awards.

EOOS NEXT

Until 2008 EOOS also worked in the field of shop design for clients such as Giorgio Armani or Adidas.

After the financial crisis in 2008/09 EOOS stopped doing shop design and began to engage in the field of social and sustainable design for partners such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or Caritas Austria.

In 2020 EOOS NEXT was founded by EOOS as a social business to advance its social and sustainable design initiatives.