Piet Hein was a Danish Universalist who is well known for his designs and his Grooks. Grooks are small poems that you’re lucky to find still in print today, and there are only about 2,000 pages of these interesting snippets of prose in the world. They are not in magazine articles; it’s hard to find biographies on Hein in the first place, and if you catch a mention of them in encyclopaedias, consider yourself lucky. Part of the reason for this? Hein wrote his Grooks in his native Danish, which only about 5 million people speak. Hein is known in Denmark, but not well known anywhere else.
Hein’s super ellipse is his claim to fame, developing it for use when he solved the traffic loop problem in Sergel’s Square in Stockholm. His unique mix of art and science is evident in his super ellipse and he described his thinking behind it by saying, “Man is the animal that draws lines which he himself then stumbles over.
In the whole pattern of civilization there have been two tendencies, one toward straight lines and rectangular patterns and one toward circular lines. There are reasons, mechanical and psychological, for both tendencies. Things made with straight lines fit well together and save space. And we can move easily – physically or mentally – around things made with round lines. But we are in a straitjacket, having to accept one or the other, when often some intermediate form would be better. To draw something freehand – such as the patchwork traffic circle they tried in Stockholm – will not do. It isn’t fixed, isn’t definite like a circle or square. You don’t know what it is. It isn’t esthetically satisfying. The super ellipse solved the problem. It is neither round nor rectangular, but in between. Yet it is fixed, it is definite – it has a unity.”
There are 10,000 Grooks in all that were written by Piet Hein and they are the perfect example of his philosophy of life in small snippets. They have been compared to the writings of Goethe and to Biblical proverbs and his hope was that would be his legacy. He purposefully learned numerous languages in order to translate the Grooks himself and for others to enjoy, and many of them we know and possibly use in daily life. For example, the saying ‘Things that don’t actually kill you outright make you stronger’ is one that has been paraphrased throughout the world. The whole Grook is called ‘A Maxim For Vikings’ and the whole saying is ‘Here is a fact that should help you fight a bit longer; things that don’t actually kill you outright make you stronger’.
Hein actually developed his Grooks as his way of stating his displeasure at Germany’s occupation of Denmark during World War II. The word ‘Grook’ is actually a nonsense word, but it worked well for him. If you want to read any of Hein’s ‘Grooks’ you may need to scour old book stores as they are out of print in English.
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