When Stiegelmeyer hospital beds were green and orange

Technology and look of hospital beds in the 70s

125th anniversary

Online editorial team Stiegelmeyer

12/02/2024

1968 was a revolutionary year in which the conformity of the post-war period in Europe came to an end and the wild sixties took off. The spirit of optimism also spread to Herford. Our advertising department published a flyer with the title "The future has already begun at Stiegelmeyer". Behind it was a new range of hospital beds that catapulted the company to the top of the industry: the 70 series.

In 1973, Stiegelmeyer celebrated the invigorating effect of the colour orange.

The Stiegelmeyer hospital beds of the 1970s exemplify what has always made our company special: the company’s innovative strength, its sure instinct for the demands of the times and the likeable way it presents itself. The successful 70 series meant that thousands of hospital beds in Germany came close to today's technical standards for the first time. At the same time, however, the design it incorporated was so perfectly in keeping with the eccentric spirit of the era that it still brings a smile to observers’ faces even today.

Beds of the 70 series, centred around the basic model no. 5270, combined everything that was innovative and modern in 1968: adjustable backrests, centrally braked castors, reverse-Trendelenburg and Trendelenburg positions, vertical and horizontal wall-deflection rollers – and, most importantly, height adjustment from about 50 to 80 centimetres. At that time, nursing staff were already thinking about back-friendly working, but had not yet thought about protecting patients from falls by using low-height beds: For decades, in fact, Stiegelmeyer considered a senior-friendly height of 55 cm for getting out of bed to be the ideal low-height position, a fact that was even backed up by customer surveys.

Electric adjustment had been available at Stiegelmeyer since the 1960s, but was probably still considered premature for the mass market. The 70 series involved a lot of pumping, cranking and pulling levers to set the beds to the desired position. To illustrate the many options, the advertising department abandoned its usual restraint and put a model in bed who, with her polka-dot blouse, looked like a cousin of Uschi Glas in one of the school comedies of the time. A pink Pril flower served as the logo for the 70 series. However, the bed itself was still white and radiated respectability.

Professor Eusemann from Nuremberg designed the colour scheme for the Euroform beds.

That was soon to change. In 1973, the new successor to the 70 series was the "Euroform" range. This was even more modern and now also offered a standard model variant boasting electric height adjustment. It was the choice of colours, however, that was particularly breathtaking. Under the headline "Stiegelmeyer brings colour to the hospital", a contemporary advertisement depicts a bed and a bedside cabinet sporting such a bright orange that it could be used to warn of motorway roadworks.

The fascinating background to this could be garnered from the text of the advert and an Internet search: it turned out that Stiegelmeyer had commissioned Professor Stephan Eusemann (1924-2005) from the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg with devising a colour concept for the "Euroform Color" line. Mr Eusemann, in his capacity as an artist and colour expert, was highly renowned and designed award-winning porcelain vases for Hutschenreuther, for example. "Hospital furnishings don't have to be white! After all, white is rigid and silent, while colour lives and speaks and creates soothing moods for both the sick and the healthy", the professor was quoted in the advertisement.

The colourful beds were a great success – particularly in nursing homes, as we will see from our next calendar story. But, just as the entire aesthetics of the 1970s, this idea ultimately disappeared into oblivion forever, at least where adult beds were concerned. In 1985, Stiegelmeyer itself, in a complete reversal of events, declared that colour was outdated and that white was the new hype. Since then, white, blue and grey have remained the legitimate colour palette for hospital beds, increasingly complemented these days by the use of calming wood decors.

German President Walter Scheel (2nd from right) inspected the new Classic premium bed in 1977.

For Stiegelmeyer, however, it seemed that the 70s were far from over with the advent of the Euroform. In 1977, in fact, a further sensation followed with the Classic premium hospital bed, which refined all the strengths of its predecessors and made use of a new, lighter material with its die-cast aluminium alloy. This bed was inspected by German President Walter Scheel at the Hanover Trade Fair in 1977, where it was honoured with the "Good Industrial Form" design award. Above all, however, the Classic and its many offshoots marked the beginning of the history of bed names at Stiegelmeyer following a century of product numbers – but more about that in a later story.

By the end of the 1970s, Stiegelmeyer had a bed of the century in its portfolio in the form of its economical Classic version "Comforta", which then opened the way to the new millennium. By then, the designers had established the electric adjustability of hospital beds and, thanks to persistent research, had also developed machine washability to such an extent that Stiegelmeyer still benefits from this lead today. And, in some small way, the vibes of the flower power era live on to this day.