Andreas Pavel
| Andreas Pavel | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1945 Brandenburg |
| Nationality | German |
| Engineering career | |
| Significant design | Stereobelt (proto-Walkman) |
Andreas Pavel (born in 1945) is a German-Brazilian media designer, sociologist, philosopher, inventor, and music producer, who is credited as the first person to invent and patent the personal stereo player, that became a worldwide success after the idea was commercialized by Sony as the Walkman.
Pavel's grandfather had been the engineer responsible for the design of the Berlin subway system, and his father became the vice-president of the Federation of German in Industries (BDI). Born in Brandenburg, Germany, Pavel went to São Paulo when he was six years old, brought by his father who went to work for the Matarazzo Industries.
Having studied philosophy and social sciences in Berlin, Pavel started his professional career when he came back to Brazil in 1967 as head of programming of the newly found public television TV Cultura. From 1970 to 1973 Pavel was responsible for editorial planning at Abril Cultural, where he developed partwork encyclopedias that were sold nationwide at newsstands, most notably the collection of philosophical classics "Os Pensadores" produced together with José Artur Gianotti, and the reference collection of great popular composers "Musica Popular Brasileira", produced with music critic Tárik de Souza.
From 1968 onwards Pavel lived in a round-shaped house in Cidade Jardim, projected for his mother by the architect Ronaldo Duschenes, a place that became known and much visited for its legendary quality as a sound reproduction environment. Pavel was acquainted to many important personalities of the time, including journalist Vladimir Herzog, poets Augusto and Haroldo de Campos, critic Francisco Achcar, psychologists Rodolfo Azzi and José Gaiarsa, film critic Jean-Claude Bernardet, philosophers Hugh Lacey and José Artur Gianotti, architects Sérgio Ferro and Flávio Império, photographer Thomas Farkas, oncologist Drauzio Varella, anthropologist Ruth Cardoso, sociologist Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and culture historian Ottaviano de Fiore, among others. It was in that efervescent environment of sound, culture, and politics, at a time of military dictatorshipin in Brazil, that Pavel developed his concept of a personal hifi-stereo listening system.
In 1976 Pavel moved to Milan to continue the multi-media research that he had started in São Paulo. In 1977 he wrote the blueprint for his personal audio system, "The Coming Audio Revolution", and designed a modular version of it,the stereobelt, which today is part of the collection of the Museum for Italian Design, at the Trienale di Milano.
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