Vitra-design museum

Ok unfortunately dont trust guys to take pictures... On Sunday, we were at the vitra design museum, and I stupidly forgot to bring my camera... So I kinda relied on Julian to take the pics. THe only picutre that I can put online. Sigh

So it was really overcast (look at the sky!!).

So Vitra is a furniture/designer item factory, and the only reason why I know them, is because of the 100-chairs collection. This is a collection of 100 chairs over the years from 1898 till 1998, where it discontinued... A few really nice chairs included the ones from Frank Gehry, where the chairs were constructed from cardboard. Unfortunately the chairs were "out-of-bounds" so I couldnt test out the strength of the chair. I suppose spilling a drink on these chairs (or getting caught in the rain) is a no-no. Apparaently Gehry designed it as sort of a "cheap" chair, easily manufactured, can be sold cheaply. However, when it went into production, it was so hot that the prices just kept shooting up (Gehry could only protest and be obviously pissed)... obviously the manufacturer had interest to keep this a limited edition (since prices were so high!).


Oh I have to mention all these chairs qualify only if they can be industrially produced! (well well... after all, vitra factory has to be in production!). Another chair was the supermarket trolley chair, where one end was removed. Just as I thought, it is indeed by Duane Hansan, possibly famous for supermarket lady :) And this is (if there is only one copy?) in Aachen's Ludwig forum ! :) Hi hi ... So I couldnt resist,... here is a picture of it I downloaded from ludwig forum. (I know it is pretty obnoxious...)

Unfortunately, dear friend Julian was too busy taking pictures of random cute babes on the tour (seriously! come to think of it, he was probably bored...) ... he didnt have pics of the chairs.. and I forgot to buy a poster :'(...

Ok enough about the chairs. The other highlight of vitra musuem is the architecture. There was a factory fire, reason enough for the company to build new buildings over the 1990's. The topic was good architecture doesnt need to be more expensive than bad ones... This was sort of the minimalism concept. 3 Architects adorable : Tadao Ando (light and water), Frank Gehry (curly wurly), and Hadid (sorry, hv problems with her name) (lines)... The fire-station (now decommissioned, and used as a museum) was designed by Hadid, and it was sort of in the form of movement... In the building, lines converge, and the walls are at an angle, some may feel sea sick. It is almost in the form a ship. Noteworthy, stairs were anchored only on one end, providing suspension. the use of lines to "open" up spaces was exploited. Unfortunately, sigh sigh.. I dont have pics to show all these "gadgets"....