Der Vitra Campus

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Vitra Design Museum

Since the 1980s, the Vitra company has erected buildings on its grounds in collaboration with some of the leading architects of the present day, including Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, SANAA, Álvaro Siza, Nicholas Grimshaw and Herzog & de Meuron. This has resulted in a unique architectural ensemble, about which the architectural critic Philip Johnson wrote: “Since the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart in 1927, there has not been a gathering in a single place of a group of buildings designed by the most distinguished architects in the Western world.” The Vitra Campus currently attracts over 330,000 annual visitors. While the VitraHaus by Herzog & de Meuron provides the opportunity to experience furniture classics and new products from the Vitra Home Collection, the renowned Vitra Design Museum by Frank Gehry presents alternating exhibitions, which are accompanied by numerous events and workshops. Further attractions on the Vitra Campus include a museum shop, a café and guided architectural tours of the buildings on the Campus. With roughly 300 illustrations, Vitra Campus offers an overview of Vitra architecture, its daily use, the development of the Campus and biographies of the architects. It is ideally suited as a souvenir, as preparation for a visit, as a Campus guide, or simply as interesting reading on some of the most significant architects and buildings of our time.

Vitra Campus: Architecture Design Industry

Arts & Photography

Architecture

Lightopia investigates the development of light design, taking a novel perspective by placing the current paradigm shift in the larger context of cultural history. The starting point for the book is the Vitra Design Museum’s extensive, never before seen lighting collection, from which particularly rare and important pieces are reproduced here―by designers such as Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, Achille Castiglioni and Gino Sarfatti. Parallel to these works, contemporary examples from the fields of design and art explore the current developments and transitions in light design: from new illumination concepts and innovative light designs to dynamic urban street lighting and energy efficient multifunctional (media) facades up to art installations and light experiments. Lightopia looks at natural phenomena and new technologies as well as exploring the fundamental emotional power of light. The spectrum of works surveyed extends from light objects inter alia by Troika and Mischer Traxler up to installations by Olafur Eliasson. These art and design objects are juxtaposed with exhibits from different cultural-historical contexts, which all allude to light’s various symbolic connotations and speak of people’s ongoing fascination with light throughout the ages.

Lightopia

Konstantin Grcic (born 1965) is one of the leading designers of our time. Many of his creations, such as Chair_One (2004) or the Mayday lamp (1999), are already recognized as design classics. Konstantin Grcic: Panorama is being published in conjunction with the largest solo exhibition on Grcic to date. It constitutes the first catalogue raisonné of the designer’s work and documents more than 350 pieces of furniture, products and exhibitions with informative details, images and comprehensive descriptions. This overview is accompanied by numerous illustrated essays from renowned authors, including Peter Sloterdijk, Richard Sennett, Paola Antonelli, Jonathan Olivares, Mario Carpo, Louise Schouwenberg, Jan Boelen, Janna Lipsky and Mateo Kries. While some essays investigate Grcic’s oeuvre and its context, others address broader issues that shape Grcic’s work, such as new production technologies, the evolution of the home or the development of public space. The book is further augmented by a series of images depicting visionary spatial designs by Grcic produced especially for the exhibition, demonstrating his conceptions of life in the future. All these facets combine to make the book a unique panorama of a designer whose contemporary influence is widely felt, as well as a fascinating read for all those with an interest in the future of design.

Konstantin Grcic: Panorama: Catalogue Raisonné

Individual Artists

Mies van der Rohe: Architecture and design in Stuttgart, Barcelona, Brno

Vegesack, Alexander von and Matthias Kries (eds)

A Danish designer who lived in Switzerland, Verner Panton (1926-1998) was a great master of postwar design. While extravagant forms and the use of strong, bright color are hallmarks of his work, it is clearly grounded in the elegant Functionalism of the 1950s. Panton retained a systematic approach to design throughout his life, and his practice extended to the design and development of groups of works and entire spaces. This volume celebrates Paint's diverse oeuvre, and constitutes a significant contribution to the history of postwar design.

Verner Panton: The Collected Works

Horsfeld, Hanne

Hvidberg-Hansen, Poul

Reference

The singular virtues of bamboo, one of the world's most important construction materials, are being rediscovered: not only is it extremely cost-effective and durable, it also has a unique aesthetic appeal, whilst its internal structure is remarkably similar to more high-tech materials. Columbian architect Simón Vélez (born 1959) has recognized the benefits of bamboo and put them to practical use in numerous buildings. His project, the pavilion for the ZERI Foundation at Expo 2000 in Hannover-which, at a diameter of 130 feet and height of 55 feet is one of the largest bamboo structures in the world--is described in great detail.

Grow Your Own House: Simon Velez and Bamboo Architecture (English and German Edition)

Living in Motion: Design und Architektur fur flexibles Wohnen

Annemarie Seiler-Baldinger

Stephanie Bunn

Stefan Rammler

Antje Flade

Peter Dobers

Lars Strannegaard

Mathais ed. et al. Schwartz-Clauss

Flexibility, mobility and versatility: these three qualities have driven technological and formal innovations in design and architecture at least since modernism. Living in Motion is the first interdisciplinary account of flexible living, presenting works by modernist and contemporary architects and designers such as Charles and Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller, Jean Prouvé, Joe Colombo and Shigeru Ban, comparing and contrasting their works with flexible houses and installations in non-European cultures.

Living in Motion: Design and Architecture for Flexible Dwelling

In the fields of design, architecture, and engineering, Jean Prouvé (1901–1984) is widely considered one of the most versatile and innovative designers of the 20th century. Yet surprisingly, only a relatively small number of collectors and cognoscente outside France are familiar with his work. Alongside Charles and Ray Eames, to whose oeuvre Vitra has dedicated itself since 1957, Jean Prouvé can truly be considered the second major "constructor" in 20th century design. The small book delves into the manifest differences between the Eames' work and Prouvé's designs – differences that are quite evidently the product of the respective technological climate in which these marvelous designers were active. For many years now, the Vitra Design Museum collection has focused on Jean Prouvé as well as Charles and Ray Eames.

Jean Prouvé & Charles & Ray Eames: Constructive Furniture

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Books by Vitra Design Museum