Mercedes-Benz to cut the creases

Mercedes-Benz is to move further towards minimalism: its ‘Aesthetics A’ sculpture, announced late last week, previews an update in its design language for smaller cars and reworks the principal design elements for its upcoming compact-class cars.

Immediately apparent is the architecture of the sculpture, a three-box form. While recent Mercedes concept cars have taken monoform shapes, Daimler notes that outside of Europe, the classic saloon is very much in demand in the compact sector, and at the Detroit motor show, chairman Dr Dieter Zetsche hinted at a new four-door sedan.

Aesthetics A, the latest of a series of ‘Aesthetics’ sculptures since 2010, shows simplified massing and character lines. Mercedes notes that this is an advancement of the ‘Sensual Purity’ design language, distilling automotive forms down to a pure expressive essence unencumbered by extraneous character lines. And, indeed, a single character line forms a strong shoulder just below the glasshouse and across the top of the wheels, drawing the eye horizontally across the surface of the car, increasing its apparent length.

The mass of the body is simple as well, with breaks in the surface reduced and broadened into sweeping, angled surfaces that communicate the essential sculptural quality and proportions of the car, emphasised by the resulting light-and-shadow contouring.

One detail revealed on the otherwise conceptual model is the so-called ‘Panamericana’ grille treatment with its vertical slats, perhaps therefore to be adopted by upcoming AMG variants of the new A- and B-Class. And its red body finish heralds ‘a new signature Mercedes-Benz colour’, thought to be expressive, confident and underscoring ‘the sensuality and emotion of the sculpture’.

Gorden Wagener, Mercedes-Benz’s chief design officer, commented: “Form and body are what remain when creases and lines are reduced to the extreme. We have the courage to apply this purism. In combination with sensual surface design, the upcoming generation of the compact class has the potential to herald a new design era. Design is also the art of omission: the days of creases are over.”