Origins of the Vitra Design Museum Collections

The Vitra Design Museum collections evolved from modest beginnings in the 1980s to become one of the world’s most important collections of modern furniture. It was founded on two furniture collections – one compiled by Rolf Fehlbaum and the other by Alexander von Vegesack.

Surveying the collections as a whole, the following areas emerge as focal points: the period from the 1850s to the turn of the century shows a focus on bentwood furniture, the designs of Viennese architects and pieces by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright. The first three decades of the twentieth century are most prominently represented by the work of Gerrit Rietveld, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the Bauhaus, as well as Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret. Along with the sizeable holdings from American sources, particularly Charles & Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen and Harry Bertoia, the period up to the Second World War is also defined by the French ‘constructeur’ Jean Prouvé, whose work is superbly documented with his most significant furniture designs, as well as many of his facade elements. From Scandinavia, there are designs by such figures as Alvar Aalto, Arne Jacobsen, Hans Wegner, Poul Kjaerholm and Verner Panton and, from Italy, pieces by Gio Ponti, Carlo Mollino, Achille Castiglioni, Studio Memphis and Alchimia. Furnishings from the Arts and Crafts movement along with Art Deco and Art Nouveau are represented, albeit with relatively few examples. Taking the position that subsequent developments in modern furniture can only be fully understood as the ideological and stylistic heirs of these late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century movements, the earlier periods would presumably be the mostly likely candidates for expansion within the collections.

Design Museum Collections, Vitra Design Museum, Read more: Vitra Magazine

Season Ceramic Vase by sofia_designers

Season is a ceramic vase with a poetic meaning. A wide base, exaggeratedly decentered, receives the petals that the cutted flower lost over time. Season is a metaphor of elapsed time. The rigour and simplicity of the shape: a cylinder on a white ceramic plate, contrasts with the forms and the colors of the vegetal. It follows in a sensitive and poetic staging where the flower is the center of attention.

Season Ceramic Vase, by sofia_designers

Alila Villas Uluwatu Bali by WOHA

Located on the dry savannah landscape of the Bukit Peninsula on the dramatic southern cliffs of the Indonesian island of Bali, Alila Villas Uluwatu, is designed to investigate the potential of the fusion of vernacular architecture with modernist design. The design combines the delights of traditional Balinese pavilion architecture and rural landscapes with modern dynamic treatment of space and form. The design is based from first principles around the pleasures inhabiting the particular site, rather than assembling stereotypical images of Bali or generic resorts.

Alila Villas Uluwatu, Bali, Indonesia, by WOHA, Photography by Tim Griffith & Patrick Bingham-Hall, via: Arch Daily

Swarm Room Divider by Mike & Maaike for Council

Swarm is a space divider that offers great flexibility in density and scale, enabling the creation of light-filled, intimate spaces within open environments. The term Swarm describes an aggregation of animals (insects, fish, birds and microorganisms) of similar size and body orientation, generally cruising in the same direction. The Swarm space divider displays a similar behavior, softening spaces, fading in and out, creating texture and motion. The self-standing units blend together when arranged in groups.

Swarm Room Divider, by Mike & Maaike, for Council

Eames ES 102 Intermediate Swivel Arm Chair

The Mid-Century Modernist has unearthed a close relative of the Executive Chair, the ES 102 Intermediate Swivel Arm Chair is made of a bright polished Eames aluminum Eames Universal base, frame and arms; black painted tube. Black leather upholstery on the seat, back and arm rests. Introduced in 1968, discontinued in 1973 due to high production costs.

ES 102 Intermediate Swivel Arm Chair, 1968, by Charles and Ray Eames
via: The Mid-Century Modernist

Quant 1 by Ippolito Fleitz Group

Despite its compact layout and clearly defined living zones, the model apartment appears extremely spacious, an effect that was achieved through a strong emphasis on transparency and openness in the design of the individual elements. A glamorous, curved staircase forms the central core of the apartment and opens up the two floors to create an open airspace, around which all the other rooms are grouped. Stepping onto the staircase thus becomes the ideal way of experiencing the apartment in its entirety.

Quant 1, Stuttgart, Germany, by Ippolito Fleitz Group

Tree by Floor to Heaven

What looks like the cross section of a very old and very large oak tree with many rings is actually a soft, wool area rug.

Tree by Floor to Heaven , via: Stylin Rooms

Atelier Bardill by Valerio Olgiati

The Atelierhouse Bardill replaces an old barn in the protected centre of the village Scharans. The building permission was granted by the local authorities only under the condition that the new building would have exactly the same volume as the old barn.

The client, Linard Bardill, who lives in a house a very short walking distance away from the site, needed only one single space, a room to work in. This working space occupies not even a third of the stipulated volume. The rest of it constitutes a courtyard that is monumentalized by a huge round opening to the sky. This is where the house expresses greatness and clearness in contrast to the arbitrary geometry of its external appearance and to the small-scale environment of the village.

Atelier Bardill, Scharans, Switzerland by Valerio Olgiati
via: Arch Daily

Hand Werk Boxes by Peter Nencini

Edition of 50 Hand Werk boxes, each containing a set of materials and forms, for abstract play. Wood, plastic, ceramic, rubber, fabric. The components, mostly designed and cut to combine with counterparts sourced from school science lab suppliers for example, have a character that sits somewhere between board game bits, measurement tools, ambiguous accessories for clothing, for eating.

Hand Werk Boxes, by Peter Nencini

Monograph: Vincent Van Duysen: Complete Works

For more than two decades, Belgian architect Vincent Van Duysen has created a series of exquisite buildings and residences, from the Low Countries to New York, with profoundly elemental spaces enriched by a refined palette of materials. The results are sublime, rich, minimal yet tactile.
This is the complete monograph of Van Duysen’s work, including his domestic architecture, office and commercial spaces, as well as furniture and decorative objects for such leading international manufacturers as Tribù, B&B Italia, Poliform and Swarovski. Van Duysen celebrates the essence of form, the elegance of proportion and the refinement of hidden details. His is an architecture for connoisseurs, and this comprehensive publication reveals why he has become such a celebrated figure. Over thirty projects are presented in detail, each with a project profile, many accompanied by specially commissioned photographs, along with a complete project chronology.

Collected together in a large-scale format, the book includes an introduction by noted architecture critic Marc Dubois and tributes by architects David Adjaye, Alberto Campo Baeza and Michael Gabellini, fashion designer Ann Demeulemeester and furniture designer Patricia Urquiola, all of whom provide fascinating insights into Van Duysen’s inspirational output.

Vincent Van Duysen: Complete Works, Foreword by Ilse Crawford, Introduction by Marc Dubois, 29.50 x 23.20 cm, Hardback, 288pp, 382 Illustrations, 252 in colour,
ISBN 9780500342619, Published by Thames & Hudson

Buy it here: Amazon