VITRA – DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE, COMMUNICATION: A EUROPEAN PROJECT
WITH AMERICAN ROOTS AT PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ARTS
November 22, 2014 - April 26, 2015
VITRA – DESIGN,
ARCHITECTURE, COMMUNICATION: A EUROPEAN PROJECT WITH AMERICAN ROOTS AT
PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ARTS
November 22, 2014 - April
26, 2015
Perelman Building
The Philadelphia Museum
of Art is presenting Vitra—Design, Architecture, Communication, an
exhibition exploring the story of Vitra, the family-owned Swiss furniture
company, from its American roots and distinguished design collaborations to its
architectural commissions and educational outreach. The exhibition of some 120
works includes furniture, design objects, publications, models, publications,
and videos divided into the following sections: American Roots;
Communications; Architecture/Site; Products/Designers; and Vitra Design
Museum, Collections/Archives.
In conjunction with the
exhibition, Rolf Fehlbaum, Vitra’s Chairman Emeritus, will be honored by
Collab, the group for modern and contemporary design at the Museum. He receives
Collab’s 2014 Design Excellence Award on November 21. Fehlbaum founded the
Vitra Design Museum with his collection of modern and contemporary furniture
and then expanded its activities to include traveling exhibitions,
publications, and workshops. He created Vitra Edition, a program of
experimental pieces such as Ron Arad’s looping steel Well-Tempered Chair (1986)
and Philippe Starck’s surreal W.W. Stool (1990), which will be included in the
exhibition, and commissioned internationally renowned architects to design
buildings for the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein.
The exhibition includes
contemporary products in addition to historic objects and archival material
from the Vitra Design Museum that represent the firm’s American roots. These
include a plywood toy elephant by Charles and Ray Eames, a group of Alexander
Girard’s Wooden Dolls, and George Nelson’s 1948 furniture catalogue
for Herman Miller.
Vitra’s founders, Willi
and Erika Fehlbaum, began licensing furniture from Herman Miller for the European
market with designs by Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, and Alexander
Girard in 1957. The Eameses view of design as the “recognition of need,” their
warning against “stylistic excess,” and their understanding of the connections
between people, ideas, and objects have served as Vitra’s guiding principles
ever since. The company continues to manufacture such classics, as well as new
products by leading international designers, from Verner Panton and Antonio
Citterio to Jasper Morrison and Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, which are on view.
Rolf Fehlbaum joined the
family business in 1977. He launched Vitra’s signature architecture program by
commissioning British architect Nicholas Grimshaw to design new factory
buildings when a substantial part of Vitra’s manufacturing facilities were
destroyed in a fire in 1981. Other commissions followed, among them the Vitra
Design Museum by Frank Gehry, a fire station by Zaha Hadid, a conference
pavilion by Tadao Ando, VitraHaus by Herzog & de Meuron, a factory building
by SANAA, and Balancing Tools, a large-scale outdoor sculpture by Claes
Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.
ABOUT ROLF FEHLBAUM
Rolf Fehlbaum (born April
6, 1941, Basel) studied social sciences at the University of Freiburg in
Breisgau and later in Munich, Bern, and Basel, completing his doctoral thesis
on Utopian Socialism in 1967. Upon completion of his studies, he worked as an
editor and producer for the Bavaria Film Company and led education and training
at the Bavarian Chamber of Architects, before joining Vitra in 1977. Fehlbaum
has received numerous honors and awards, including an honorary doctorate from
the Royal College of Art in London (2010), an honorary Fellowship of the Royal
Institute of British Architects (2010), and a placement on the Pritzker
Architecture Prize jury from 2004 to 2010.
CURATOR
Kathryn Bloom Hiesinger,
The J. Mahlon Buck, Jr. Family Senior Curator of European Decorative Arts after
1700
ABOUT COLLAB
Collab is a volunteer
group that supports the Museum’s modern and contemporary design collection and
programs. Now among the most important in the country, the collection of more
than 2,000 objects ranges from appliances and furniture to ceramics, glass, posters,
wallpapers, and lighting. Each year, Collab honors a design professional who
has made significant contributions to the field. In addition, the group offers
its annual Student Design Competition to challenge college students to be
inspired by design. This year’s competition culminates in a display of selected
student works in the Great Stair Hall Balcony of the Philadelphia Museum of
Art’s main building through November 21, 2014.
http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/814.html
EAMES
ELEPHANT 1945
DESIGNED
& MADE BY CHARLES EAMES ( AMERICAN 1907
– 1978 )
Dimension:
41.9 × 41.3 × 78.7 cm
© Vitra ( www.vitra.com )
CHARLES
& RAY EAMES
Charles
Eames, born 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri, studied architecture at Washington
University in St. Louis and opened his own office together with Charles M. Gray
in 1930. In 1935 he founded another architectural firm with Robert T. Walsh.
After receiving a fellowship in 1938 from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, he
moved to Michigan and joined the faculty the following year. In 1940, he and
Eero Saarinen won first prize for their joint entry in the competition 'Organic
Design in Home Furnishings' organised by the New York Museum of Modern Art.
During the same year, Eames became head of the department of industrial design
at Cranbrook, and in 1941 he married Ray Kaiser.
Ray Eames was born as Bernice Alexandra Kaiser
in Sacramento, California, in 1912. She attended Bennett College in Millbrook,
New York, and continued her studies in painting under Hans Hofmann through
1937. During this year she exhibited her work in the first exhibition of the
American Abstract Artists group at the Riverside Museum in New York. She
matriculated at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1940 and married Charles Eames
the following year.
From 1941 to 1943, Charles and Ray Eames
designed and developed stretchers and leg splints made of moulded plywood, and
in 1946 they exhibited their experimental moulded plywood furniture at the New
York Museum of Modern Art. The Herman Miller Company in Zeeland, Michigan,
subsequently began to produce the Eameses' furniture designs. Charles and Ray
participated in the 1948 'Low-Cost Furniture' competition at MoMA, and they
built the Eames House in 1949 as their own private residence. Around 1955 they
began to focus more on their extensive work as photographers and filmmakers,
and in 1964 Charles received an honorary doctoral degree from the Pratt Institute
in New York.
The Eames Office designed the IBM Pavilion for
the 1964-65 World's Fair in New York, and the year 1969 offered the opportunity
to participate in the exhibition 'Qu'est-ce que le design?' at the Musée des
Arts Décoratifs in Paris. In 1970-71, Charles was appointed as the Charles
Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University. MoMA again presented an
exhibition of the Eameses' work, entitled 'Furniture by Charles Eames', in
1973. Charles Eames died in St. Louis in 1978; Ray's death followed in 1988.
Charles and Ray Eames have had a profound and
lasting influence on Vitra. The company's activity as a furniture manufacturer
began in 1957 with the production of their designs. Yet it is not just the
products of Charles and Ray Eames that have left their mark on Vitra. Even
today, their design philosophy continues to profoundly shape the company's
values, orientation and goals.
http://www.vitra.com/en-un/corporation/designer/details/charles-ray-eames
LA CHAIS 1948 DESIGNED BY CHARLES & RAY EAMES
PLYWOOD GROUP
1945 – 1946
DESIGNED BY CHARLES & RAY EAMES
PLYWOOD GROUP 1945 – 1946
DESIGNED BY CHARLES & RAY EAMES
LOUNGE CHAIR
& OTTOMON 1956
DESIGNED BY CHARLES & RAY EAMES
ORGANIC CHAIR BY CHARLES EAMES & EERO SAARINEN 1940
CHARLES EAMES & EERO SAARINEN
WOODEN DOOLS 1963
DESIGNED BY ALEXANDER GIRARD ( AMERICAN 1907 – 1995 )
Made by Vitra GmbH, Basel, Switzerland
Solid fir, Hand-Painted (Lent by Vitra)
Photograph by Marc Eggimann © Vitra ( www.vitra.com )
AC 4 CHAIR 2008 DESIGN BY ANTONIO CITTERIO
ANTONIO
CITTERIO
Antonio
Citterio was born in the Italian city of Meda in 1950. He graduated in
architecture from the Politecnico di Milano and opened his own studio in 1972,
focusing mainly on industrial design. In 1999, Antonio Citterio and Patricia
Viel formed 'Antonio Citterio and Partners' as a multidisciplinary office for
architecture, industrial design and graphics. The firm develops projects for
residential and commercial complexes and industrial facilities, plans the
restructuring and conservation of public buildings, and produces interior
designs for work areas, offices, showrooms and hotels. In addition to their
further activities in the sector of corporate communications, image and
identity, Citterio and Partners also design installation fixtures and graphics.
Antonio Citterio currently works with prominent
Italian and international firms such as Ansorg, Arclinea, Axor/Hansgrohe,
Aubrilam, B&B Italia, Flexform, Flos, Fusital, Guzzini, Iittala, Inda,
Kartell, Maxalto, Sanitec Group/Pozzi Ginori, Simon Urmet, Technogym, Tre Più
and Vitra.
He has received numerous awards, including the
Compasso d'Oro in 1987 and 1995. The product designs Mobil and Battista, which
Citterio designed for Kartell, belong to the permanent collection of the New
York Museum of Modern Art. Mobil, Battista, Dolly, Gastone and Oxo are part of
the standing exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Tools Citterio 2000,
his tableware series for Iittala, is displayed in the permanent design
exhibition at the Chicago Museum of Architecture and Design together with the
Axor Citterio bath fixtures created for Hansgrohe.
In 2004, the Italian publishing house Electa
issued a monograph entitled «Antonio Citterio Industrial Design». The English
edition was produced by Phaidon Press. Another monographic work, written by
Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi and published by Edilstampa under the title «Antonio
Citterio», appeared in 2005. Antonio Citterio has served as a professor on the
architectural faculty at the Università della Svizzera italiana since 2006.
In January 2007, Citterio's design for a daycare
facility in Verona for GlaxoSmithKline was nominated for the Mies van der Rohe
Award by the jury and included together with 32 other projects in the
accompanying catalogue and exhibition. In July of the same year, the Italian
publisher Skira produced the monograph «Antonio Citterio: Architecture and
Design».
Also in 2007, Citterio was named 'Royal Designer
for Industry' by the London-based Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts,
Manufactures & Commerce. He is also a member of the Italian Design Council,
which was established by the Italian Ministry for Culture.
In 2009 the office received the 'US award
Workplace: qualità e innovazione' from the magazine «US-ufficiostile» for the
design of Ermenegildo Zegna's corporate headquarters.
http://www.vitra.com/en-un/corporation/designer/details/antonio-citterio
REPOS 2011 DESIGN BY ANTONIO CITTERIO
GRAND REPOS & OTTOMAN 2011 DESIGN BY ANTONIO CITTERIO
AC 4 CHAIR 2008 DESIGN BY ANTONIO CITTERIO
HEART CONE CHAIR 1959 DESIGN BY VERNER PANTON
VERNER
PANTON
Verner
Panton, born 1926 in Gamtofte, Denmark, studied at Odense Technical College
before enrolling at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen as an
architecture student.
He worked from 1950-52 in the architectural firm
of Arne Jacobsen, and founded an independent studio for architecture and design
in 1955. His furniture designs for the firm Plus-linje attracted attention with
their geometric forms. In the following years Panton created numerous designs
for seating furniture and lighting.
His passion for bright colours and geometric
patterns manifested itself in an extensive range of textile designs. By fusing
the elements of a room—floor, walls, ceiling, furnishings, lighting, textiles,
wall panels made of enamel or plastic—into a unified gesamtkunstwerk, Panton's
interior installations have attained legendary status. The most famous examples
are the "Visiona" ship installations for the Cologne Furniture Fair
(1968 and 1970), the Spiegel publishing headquarters in Hamburg (1969) and the
Varna restaurant in Aarhus (1970).
Panton's collaboration with Vitra began in the
early 1960s, when the firm decided to develop what became his best-known
design, the Panton Chair, which was introduced in 1967. This was also the first
independently developed product by Vitra.
Verner Panton died in 1998 in Copenhagen.
Vitra's re-edition of designs by Panton, as well as the retrospective of his
work mounted by the Vitra Design Museum in 2000, bear witness to the special
relationship between Vitra and Verner Panton.
http://www.vitra.com/en-un/corporation/designer/details/verner-panton
You may visit Verner
Panton’s comprehensive exhibition news at Vitra Design Museum to click below
link.
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2014/04/verner-panton-at-vitra-design-museum.html
PANTOM CHAIR 1959 - 1960 DESIGN BY VERNER PANTON
AMOEBE HIGHBACK 1970 DESIGN BY VERNER PANTON
MESA DESIGN BY ZAHA HADID
PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ARTS
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HELLA
JONGERIUS
Hella
Jongerius, born 1963 in de Meern, Netherlands, studied design at the Industrial
Design Academy in Eindhoven. She subsequently attracted international attention
through her work for the Dutch design label Droog Design.
She taught at the Design Academy in Eindhoven
from 1998-99, serving as head of the department Living/Atelier from
2000-04.
In 2000, she founded the design studio
JongeriusLab in Rotterdam, where she creates, produced and markets many of her designs
– primarily dishware, vases, textiles and furnishings.
Hella Jongerius' work often blurs the borders
between design and handicrafts, or art and technology. Along with Jasper
Morrison and Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Hella Jongerius has made major contributions
to the steadily growing Vitra Home Collection.
http://www.vitra.com/en-un/corporation/designer/details/hella-jongerius
You may visit Hella
Jongerius’ designs comprehensive news of Vitra East River Chair and
Vitra Polder Sofa to click below links.
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2014/04/vitra-east-river-chair-design-by-hella.html
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2013/07/vitra-polder-sofa-design-by-hella.html
EAST RIVER
CHAIR 2014
DESIGNED BY
HELLA JONGERIUS ( BORN 1963 )
Seat:
Laminated, Upholstery: Polyurethane Foam With Fabric Cover
Coating:
Leather and Fabrics, Frame: Natural Oak Wood With Legs Cross of
Powder -
Coated Steel or Dark Oak With Legs Cross of Powder - Coated Stell
Dimensions:
74 × 71 × 64 cm. Height of Seat: 40 cm.
Photography by Marc Eggimann © Vitra ( www.vitra.com )
POLDER SOFA 2005 DESIGNED BY HELLA JONGERIUS
KONSTANTIN
GRCIC
Konstantin
Grcic, born 1965 in Munich, completed an apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker at
Parnham College in Dorset before studying industrial design at the Royal
College of Art in London.
After working for Jasper Morrison in London from
1990-91, he established his own office in Munich in 1991. "Konstantin
Grcic Industrial Design" is both studio and workshop. In addition to
designing furnishings, objects and lighting for prominent manufacturers, Grcic
also teaches at various institutions.
His products are characterized by a formal
simplicity that is reduced to the essentials. However, the functionality of
Grcic's work, which is oriented on human needs and combined with a sharp wit
and maximum formal stringency, distinguishes it from minimalism as a mere fashion
trend.
http://www.vitra.com/en-un/corporation/designer/details/konstantin-grcic
You may visit Konstantin
Grcic’s comprehensive exhibition news at Vitra Design Museum to click below
link.
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2014/03/konstantin-grcic-panorama-at-vitra.html
WAVER 2011 DESIGN BY KONSTANTIN GRCIC
BALL CLOCK
1948 – 1960
DESIGNED BY
GEORGE NELSON ( AMERICAN 1908 – 1986 )
Metal &
Brass
Diameter: 33
cm.
Photograph by Andreas Sütterlin © Vitra ( www.vitra.com )
PETAL CLOCK
DESIGNED BY GEORGE NELSON
SUNBURST CLOCK DESIGNED BY GEORGE NELSON
JASPER
MORRISON
Jasper
Morrison, born 1959 in London, studied at the Royal College of Art in London.
He pursued further studies at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin on a
fellowship. In 1986 he founded his own design studio in London.
Two early projects that gained attention were
room installations, "Reuters News Center" for Documenta 8 in Kassel,
and "Some New Items for the Home" at the DAAD Gallery in Berlin. The
stringent concepts of these projects, which featured starkly reductive objects,
represented a reaction to the formal excesses of postmodernism.
Jasper Morrison became a leading figure of
"New Simplicity", a movement that advocated a more modest and also
more serious approach to design. In addition to furniture, he has also created
lamps, home accessories, textiles, a tram system for the city of Hanover,
Germany, and a bus shelter for the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein.
His joint 2006 exhibition with the Japanese
designer Naoto Fukasawa, entitled "Super Normal", put forth
provocative theses that once again stimulated great discussion. Along with
Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and Hella Jongerius, Jasper Morrison has made
essential contributions to the steadily growing Vitra Home Collection.
http://www.vitra.com/en-un/corporation/designer/details/jasper-morrison
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HAL ARMCHAIR STUDIO 2014 DESIGN BY JASPER MORRISON
CORK FAMILY 2014 DESIGN BY JASPER MORRISON
MONOPOD 2008 DESIGN BY JASPER MORRISON
HAL ARMCHAIR WOOD 2014 DESIGN BY JASPER MORRISON
RON ARAD ( ISRAELI 1951 )
WELL –
TEMPERED CHAIR 1986
DESIGNED BY
RON ARAD ( ISRAELI 1951 )
High - Grade
Sheet Steel, Thumb Screws
Dimensions:
80 × 98.5 × 80 Height of Seat: 48 cm.
Photography by Marc Eggimann © Vitra ( www.vitra.com )
FRANK GEHRY CARDBOARD ARMCHAIR)
WIGGLE SIDE
CHAIR 1972/2005
DESIGNED BY
FRANK O. GEHRY ( AMERICAN – BORN CANADA – 1929 )
Corrugated
Cardboard, Hardboard
Dimensions:
87 × 36.2 × 61 cm. Height of Seat : 43.2 cm
Photograph by Hans Hansen © Vitra ( www.vitra.com )
FRANK
GEHRY
Frank
Gehry, born 1929 in Toronto, Canada, earned a degree in architecture from the
University of Southern California before studying urban planning at Harvard
University's Graduate School of Design.
In 1962 he founded the architectural firm Frank
Gehry & Associates in Los Angeles. He designed the cardboard furniture
series Easy Edges between 1969-72. Over the years he has taught at several
universities, including Harvard and Yale, where he served as
Charlotte-Davenport-Professorship of Architecture (1982, 1985, 1987-89).
Gehry has received numerous honorary doctorates
from institutions including the University of Toronto, the University of
Southern California, Yale University, Harvard University and the University of
Edinburgh.
Projects for Vitra:
1994 Vitra Center (Vitra's Headquarters),
Birsfelden near Basel
1989 Vitra Design Museum and manufacturing
facility, Gehry’s first building in Europe, Vitra Campus, Weil am Rhein
http://www.vitra.com/en-un/corporation/designer/details/frank-gehry
You may visit Frank
Gehry’s design news of Vitra Wiggle Side Chair to click below link.
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2014/01/wiggle-chair-design-by-frank-o-gehry.html
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WIGGLE SIDE
CHAIR 1972/2005 B ( DETAIL )
DESIGNED BY FRANK O. GEHRY ( AMERICAN – BORN CANADA – 1929 )
THE MOON CHAIR DESIGN BY SHIRO KURAMATA
GEORGE NELSON No. 5670 / MARSHMALLOW SOFA, 1955
POTENCE LIGHT DESIGN BY JEAN PROUVE 1950
JEAN
PROUVE
Jean
Prouvé, born 1901 in Paris, was trained as a metal artisan under Emile Robert,
Enghien und Szabo in Paris. In 1924 he opened his own workshop in Nancy and
began to produce his first furnishings made of formed sheet steel in 1925. He
was a founding member of the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM) in 1930. In the
following year he established his own manufacturing firm, Les Ateliers Jean
Prouvé. During the 1930s, the company produced numerous furniture designs, as
well as some of the first prefabricated architectural elements, including
components for the Maison du Peuple in Clichy (in collaboration with the
architects Beaudoin and Lods), whose steel-and-glass structure attracted a
great deal of attention.
Due to the scarcity of steel during the Second
World War, Prouvé constructed wood furniture and developed simple houses made
out of prefabricated parts. Active in the French Résistance, Prouvé was elected
mayor of Nancy after the city was liberated. He designed and constructed
residential buildings for the homeless. In 1947 he established the Maxéville
factory, a facility of 25,000 square meters in which furnishings, prefabricated
homes and schools were produced by 200 employees. In order to meet the
increasing demand for furniture, this division came under the direction of
Steph Simon as a separate division with exclusive marketing rights in 1949. Due
to disagreements with the majority shareholders, Jean Prouvé left the company
in 1953. He designed and built his own residence in 1954. After working as head
of the construction office of the Compagnie Industrielle de Matériel de
Transport (CIMT) in Paris between 1957-68, Prouvé ran his own architectural
consulting firm in Paris from 1968-84.
He taught as professor at the Conservatoire des
Arts et Métiers (CNAM) from 1957-70. As chairman of the jury for the Centre
Pompidou architectural competition in 1971, he played a major role in selecting
the design of Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers.
Between 1980-84, Prouvé again turned his
attention to the further development of his furniture designs. He died in Nancy
in 1984. In many of his works, Jean Prouvé achieved the goal of uniting
functional requirements, the honest use of materials and economical concerns
with the complex demands of mass production. Beginning in 2002, in close
collaboration with the Prouvé family, Vitra has devoted itself to the
re-edition of numerous designs by this great constructeur.
http://www.vitra.com/en-un/corporation/designer/details/jean-prouve
EM TABLE BY JEAN PROUVE 1950
STANDARD CHAIR BY JEAN PROUVE 1934 – 1950
EDWARD
BARBER & JAY OSGERBY
Edward
Barber, born in Shrewsbury in 1969, and Jay Osgerby, born in Oxford in 1969,
studied architecture and interior design as fellow students at the Royal
College of Art in London. In 1996, they founded their own studio for design and
architecture under the name Barber & Osgerby. Since that time, their
collaborative work has probed the interface between industrial design,
furniture design and architecture.
http://www.vitra.com/en-un/corporation/designer/details/barber-osgerby
TIP TON 2011 DESIGN BY EDWARD BARBER & JAY OSGERBY
WOODEN DOOLS 1963
DESIGNED BY ALEXANDER GIRARD ( AMERICAN 1907 – 1995 )
Made by Vitra GmbH, Basel, Switzerland
Solid fir, Hand-Painted (Lent by Vitra)
© Vitra ( www.vitra.com )
PHILIPPE STARCK ( FRENCH 1949 )
W. W.
STOOL 1990
DESIGNED BY
PHILIPPE STARCK ( FRENCH 1949 )
Lacquered
Aluminium
Dimensions:
97 × 55.9 × 52.8 cm.
Philadelphia
Museum of Art. Gift of Vitra International AG, 1997
© Vitra ( www.vitra.com )
VITRA DESIGN MUSEUM DESIGN BY FRANK O. GEHRY 1989
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