search for something...

search for something you might like...

At Home with Vitra at Home

At Home with Vitra at Home

by LamontPaul, Founder & Publisher
first published: December, 2004

approximate reading time: minutes

The more humane home office

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU6NeXLkYY0

Featuring furniture and home accessories, the Vitra at Home collection debuts in the US in January, 2005. The catalog offers exciting new designs from the likes of the Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec and Jasper Morrison, alongside refocused classics that we love so well, from Eames, Nelson (Pill Desk Clock on the left - original 1954), Panton, Noguchi and others. Ahh, I hear you say, if only we 'owned' so well...

Company chairman, Rolf Fehlbaum, drew upon Vitra's near mythological history when defining the new design direction. "Vitra at Home, reminds us of our beginnings." He said. The company was founded in 1950 by Fehlbaum's furniture maker father, Willi. and achieved prominence upon licensing those famous Eames' and Nelson designs from Herman Miller for manufacture and distribution in Europe in the late 1950s and 1960s.

From there, Vitra's evolution saw it become an innovator in office and contract furniture.

"For many years I have wanted to see Vitra more active in the residential field. Now the time has come to make this strategic move." Fehlbaum said recently.

Many of those original designs were universal in their appeal in the sense that they worked both in the home or office.

As he envisions the future of Vitra at Home, Rolf Fehlbaum recognizes in new social norms antecedents dating far further back than the 1950s of the original Eames and Nelson designs.


Twig, the perfect room divider.

"A medieval town house was not just a family home," Rolf says, "it was also a manufacturing place, a shop, a place where relatives and business partners would stay when they were in town." With the industrial revolution came the separation of work from home. Home became a refuge. It's not difficult to see the burgeoning cult of the home office and the free to telecommute 24/7 world as belonging to the Dark Age. Who'd have guessed writing this over a wireless network at 3am would be so medieval? All credit to Rolf for recognizing that. The boundaries everywhere, are gone. The home, the former refuge, is now more often a live/work space and has traversed a full medieval circle. If it's true and we're stuck with it, then Vitra at Home maybe our only saving grace.


Jean Prouv?©, Bahut storage unit reissue (1950).

Offering what Rolf terms the 'collage approach' to the interior., and sounding to me like a perfectly composed eclectic mash up of confluencing color, textiles and texture. Vitra makes no bones about drawing on its undeniably iconic history. Its got it and they know it. But with Jasper, Ronan and Erwan, Vitra is hitting all the right new spots too. The introduction of Vitra at Home is one of the first things to feel really good about going into 2005.

By the way, since the boundaries are gone, maybe I should add that if this all sounds to you like Target marketing minus the reasonable price tag, after all, Philippe Starck has been found in both catalogs. It's true to say that Vitra at Home offers delights for all sizes of pocketbook. That is a good thing because the last time I brought something home from 5001 on 2nd Street, I had to call the captain of the outsideleft little league team to tell them they'd need to get a new sponsor.

LamontPaul
Founder & Publisher

Publisher, Lamontpaul founded outsideleft with Alarcon in 2004 and is hanging on, saying, "I don't know how to stop this, exactly."

Lamontpaul portrait by John Kilduff painted during an episode of John's TV Show, Let's Paint TV


about LamontPaul »»

Book week web banner

RECENT STORIES

RANDOM READS

All About and Contributors

HELP OUTSIDELEFT

Outsideleft exists on a precarious no budget budget. We are interested in hearing from deep and deeper pocket types willing to underwrite our cultural vulture activity. We're not so interested in plastering your product all over our stories, but something more subtle and dignified for all parties concerned. Contact us and let's talk. [HELP OUTSIDELEFT]

WRITE FOR OUTSIDELEFT

If Outsideleft had arms they would always be wide open and welcoming to new writers and new ideas. If you've got something to say, something a small dank corner of the world needs to know about, a poem to publish, a book review, a short story, if you love music or the arts or anything else, write something about it and send it along. Of course we don't have anything as conformist as a budget here. But we'd love to see what you can do. Write for Outsideleft, do. [SUBMISSIONS FORM HERE]

OUTSIDELEFT UNIVERSE

Ooh Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha May 29th
OUTSIDELEFT Night Out
weekend

outsideleft content is not for everyone