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| A PILE OF HOUSES |
Nr. 3 (114) |
The furniture manufacturing company Vitra founded in 1950 and still flourishing as a family business creates ergonomic, but not boring, and durable furniture for homes, offices and public spaces. In the company’s head Office in Switzerland, technologists are trying to realise ideas of most progressive designers from all over the world by applying innovative production technologies and materials. Works by Charles & Ray Eames, Jasper Morrison, Verner Panton, Jean Prouve, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Antonio Citterio and others have been turned into design icons by Vitra.
At first Vitra focused more on furniture for offices and public spaces, but in 2004, they presented a home collection for which they built another pavilion in a small German town that eventually became a suburb of Basel. The 2006 VitraHaus Project was entrusted to Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.
The 57 m long, 54 m wide and 21.3 m high VitraHaus has become the calling-card of the area. Usually production and exposition premises are situated on one level, but this time the architects have suggested a vertical structure, which would enable people to enjoy the landscape and view the dynamic furniture collections. They returned to the traditional idea of a gabled-roof house, which looks like archetype shapes piled up in natural surroundings. At the first sight such a space looks chaotic, but the twelve individual houses are connected at different points. The vertically layered shapes form a central square with five main houses surrounding it. The latter include the conference hall, the design museum, the shop, administration and the cafe.
The building is constantly changing: nature enters it through large windows during the day. At night the architecture disappears in darkness leaving only the lit glass facades. The exposition is open non-stop. |
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