Hans Ehrich

Hans Ehrich's mother was the Swedish woman Liten-Karin Sundberg, and his father the German artist Otto Ehrich, who in 1936 emigrated to Finland, where the son Hans was born in Kulosaari (currently Helsinki) in 1942. During the Finnish Continuation War the family fled to Sweden in 1944.

Hans Ehrich is grown up and educated in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Italy. His German higher school examination (Abitur) he passed in Italy, at the Scuola Germanica di Roma. In early sketches from his teens Ehrich showed that he already was a skilful drawer. He created a design sketch for the interior of an open car with ergonomically shaped seats, neck rests and separated back seats already at an age of 16 years.

From 1962 to 1967 he studied at the department for metal crafts, with concentration on silver and goldsmith training at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design (Konstfack) in Stockholm. He mixed his studies with trainee periods at Italian car producers in Milan and Turin, where he, among others, met Giorgetto Giugiaro, who asked him to join the recently established Italdesign company. The result of the studies in Turin was a large number of car design projects, among those a “Two door Sports Coupé” and a “2,5 Litre Gran Turismo Convertible”.

Ehrich's passion for cars was also expressed in his industrial design examination project at Konstfack in 1967. Together with Roland Lindhé, he developed a most paid attention to electric town car with three seats, called “Optima”. The self-supporting body of the concept car was intended to be made of plastic and aluminum. It had, among many other items, pump-free and puncture- proof tires, safety belts and a smooth and soft, shock-absorbing interior. Ehrich's and Lindhé's car existed only as a mock up, but the information about it was spread worldwide by a Swedish news agency. The authors were contacted from different countries, by people who wanted to buy the car. “Optima” was rewarded the first prize in the Ford design competition, presented in Munich in 1967.

In the following year, the future partner Tom Ahlström designed a complete furniture collection in plastic as his examination subject at Konstfack. The same year Ahlström and Ehrich decided to start their A&E Design company.

In 2022, Hans Ehrich founded the "Foundation for Industrial Design", which has the task of rewarding a young, promising industrialdesign student with a scholarship and a diploma. Four professors, working at four prominent universities with design education at the university level, will each nominate a candidate. A jury will then select the winner of "The Hans Ehrich Design Award for Excellent Young Industrial Design". The award ceremony will take place in Vitemölla and the prize money in 2022 is SEK 85,000.