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The 1993 construction of the Conference Pavilion by Tadao Ando was the architect’s first building outside Japan. The calm and restrained structure encompasses an assortment of conference rooms. It is characterized by a highly ordered spatial articulation with a large part of its volume concealed below grade. A striking feature is the footpath leading to the pavilion, which has a significant association with meditation paths in the gardens of Japanese monasteries.
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On the seventieth birthday of Willi Fehlbaum, Vitra’s founder, his children presented him with the sculpture “Balancing Tools”. Erected on the grounds between the main road and the complex of buildings, it depicts the tools of the furniture maker juxtaposed with one another on an oversized scale. During visits to Claes Oldenburg’s studio, Rolf Fehlbaum, the Chairman of Vitra, came into contact with Frank Gehry.
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Over the years, Vitra accumulated a growing collection of chairs and other furniture. With the aim of making the collection accessible to the public, a shed-like structure was initially envisioned for storage and exhibition purposes. Yet during the planning of Frank Gehry’s first building in Europe, the original function was expanded. A museum was established as an independent foundation dedicated to the research and popularization of design and architecture: the Vitra Design Museum.
Despite its modest scale, the Vitra Design Museum building emerged as a programmatic work of Deconstructivism, a collage of towers, ramps and cubes. Its expressive forms are not arbitrary, but are determined by their function and the lighting. The exhibition area totalling some 700 square metres extends over two floors, with daylight entering the roof area through large windows.
The factory hall to the rear corresponds in size and height to the adjacent building by Nicholas Grimshaw. The construction is characterized by clarity and spacious windows. Ramps and towers constitute a formal link with the museum building. Along with the production areas, the building also houses a showroom, the test laboratory, the cafeteria and offices.
The gatehouse at the entrance to the grounds contains the reception and a multi-purpose room.
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The Vitra Atelier is situated in a building that was designed by Frank Gehry and built in 2003. The Vitra Atelier is an additional attraction alongside the commercial offer in the VitraHaus, the exhibitions in the Vitra Design Museum and the architecture tours around the Vitra Campus.
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As the purpose of the VitraHaus is to display home furnishings, the architects of the VitraHaus, Herzog & de Meuron, took up the idea of the "archetypal house", as the proportions and dimensions of the rooms bring to mind residential space that is familiar to us - the architects use the term "domestic scale".
The individual "houses" which have the general characteristics of a showroom are with few exceptions glazed at the gable ends only. Superimposed in five storeys and overhanging in some cases by up to 15 metres, the twelve houses which each intersect the gables of the storey below create an almost chaotic whole.
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Constructed in 1981, Nicholas Grimshaw’s first building on the Continent bears witness to its industrial purpose as well as the technological competence of the company. Relying on prefabricated elements, planning to start-up of the production space was completed six months after the great fire as covered by insurance funds. Clad with horizontally striated façade elements made of corrugated aluminium sheeting, the building houses the production areas along with two showrooms.
The second factory by Grimshaw from 1986 contains production facilities as well as the Citizen Office. This office environment was created by Sevil Peach in 2010. The founder of the London design studio Sevil Peach Gence Associates, SPGA, has worked with Vitra for over ten years and has designed office environments for and with Vitra as well as for leading international companies.
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Designed by Jean Prouvé with his brother Henri, the petrol station was originally constructed in ca. 1953 for the company Mobil Oil Socony-Vacuum and situated at “Relais des Sangliers“ in the Haute-Loire department of France. In 2003, it was moved to the Vitra Campus and rebuilt as one of only three surviving examples.
The building consists of angular aluminium components and sheeting perforated with bull’s eye cut-outs. The load-bearing structure and wall construction are clearly differentiated from one another, a distinction reinforced by the colour scheme. Many of the buildings by Prouvé constructed out of prefabricated metal components have structural and formal qualities almost identical to his table designs and demonstrate his consistent adherence to tectonic principles in the design process.
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In the year 2000, the Campus was augmented with the addition of the Dome: a lightweight geodesic structure after Richard Buckminster Fuller, which was developed by T.C. Howard at Charter Industries in 1975 and transplanted from its original location in Detroit, USA, to Weil am Rhein. It is currently used as a space for events.
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Reminiscent of anonymous nineteenth century factory architecture, the large simple structure by Alvaro Siza concedes to the needs of the other buildings on the grounds. This is most evident in the arched bridge-like roof construction connecting the hall with the adjacent building: Its raised position maintains an unobstructed view of the Fire Station by Zaha Hadid and automatically descends when it rains to provide a sheltered passage to the Grimshaw building.
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In response to the major fire in 1981, Vitra resolved to build its own fire station. The commission for the structure was awarded to Zaha Hadid. Her first work ever to be realized, the building consists of a garage for fire engines, showers and locker rooms for the fire fighters and a conference room with kitchen facilities. The Fire Station is a sculpture of cast in-situ concrete that contrasts with the orthogonal order of the adjacent factory buildings like the frozen image of an explosion in a photograph. Today the building functions as an exhibition space.
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Vitra Design Museum is pleased to offer guided architectural tours of about 2 hours on the Vitra Campus. Daily in German at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., and in English at 12 p.m. and 2 p.m.
How to reach us
Public transportation: From Claraplatz or Badischer Bahnhof Basel, take bus 55 to Vitra. From EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg, take bus 50 to the Basel SBB Railway Station, tram 2 to Badischer Bahnhof Basel, bus 55 to Vitra.From the train station in Weil am Rhein, it is about a 15 minute walk to the museum.
By car: From Germany and Switzerland, take the A5 motorway, exit at Weil am Rhein, turn left, follow the signs for Vitra Design Museum. From France, go to the Palmrain (D) border crossing, take E35 to the Vitra Campus.
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From 1955 to 1981, the Vitra site in Weil am Rhein saw the successive addition of various manufacturing and warehouse structures that yielded a somewhat coincidental and improvised architectural composite. In 1981, most of these buildings were destroyed by a major fire.
Although insurance funds only covered a six-month interruption in production, the company did not wish to settle for anonymous standardized industrial structures or a solution with temporary facilities. The architecture was to be functional and offer a pleasant work environment while also fulfilling aesthetic requirements. Assigned to the architect Nicholas Grimshaw, this first project was followed by further buildings over the years, resulting in a heterogeneous ensemble of contemporary architecture: the Vitra Campus.
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