Roots and Wings

Meet one of the most influential designers of our time—a book about heritage, creative vision, and leadership, and what design can do for the future. Roots and Wings explore the life and work of Peter Schreyer, one of the most influential car designers of our time. A Renaissance man with an eye for detail and foresight for innovation, he geared himself toward success. Responsible for the births of some of the most iconic cars ever, his industry experience with Volkswagen, Audi, Kia, and Hyundai brought instant classics to the road.

Schreyer embodies a conduit between the West and East—bridging his homeland’s history of automotive design with South Korea, a country that has experienced stratospheric growth on the world stage in just a few decades. Looking at the formative moments and pivotal artistic discoveries that shaped his creative mindset, Roots and Wings is the story of how a man helped two polarizing cultures merge to create something unique and left a mark on history, and the future, in the process.

Born in 1953 in Bad Reichenhall, Peter Schreyer grew up on his parents’ farm, developing a passion for flying and skeleton bob racing. From 1975-1979 he studied industrial design at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich and began to work with Audi first as a student in 1978, subsequently earning an Audi scholarship to study transportation design at the Royal College of Art in London. In 1980, Schreyer began working with Audi in exterior, interior, and conceptual design, before moving to the Volkswagen group‘s prestigious design studio in California in 1991. After becoming VW’s head of exterior design in 1993, he decided to return to Ingolstadt, shaping Audi’s design strategy as the Director of Design between 1994-2002. Having been part of the Volkswagen group for more than 25 years, Schreyer left his position as Head of Design of the VW group to become Chief Design Officer for Kia Motors in 2006. In 2013, seven years after his arrival in Korea, Schreyer stepped up from his role at Kia to become President of all Kia and Hyundai design centers worldwide and is now, as President & Head of Design Management of the Hyundai Motor Group, responsible for the company’s long-term design vision. Schreyer has received numerous awards and prizes throughout his career, including an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in recognition of his contributions to automotive design, the “Design Team of the Year” award in 1999 for Audi as well as the Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2002.