Rolf Fehlbaum

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Rolf Fehlbaum in the Vitra Schaudepot

Rolf Peter Fehlbaum (born April 6, 1941 in Basel ) is Chairman Emeritus and an active member of the Board of Directors of Vitra AG , a family-owned company in the furniture manufacturing sector with its headquarters in Birsfelden , Switzerland .

He headed the company, which he sees as a “cultural and economic project”, from 1977 to 2013. Under his leadership, Vitra developed into a well-known brand. This was achieved on the one hand through the collaboration with important contemporary designers and on the other hand through the expansion of the production site in Weil am Rhein in southern Germany to the Vitra Campus, which includes the Vitra Design Museum (1989) and the VitraHaus, which opened in 2010.

Training and first professional activities

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Rolf Fehlbaum was born in Basel in 1941 as the eldest son of Willi and Erika Fehlbaum. After graduating from high school , he began studying social sciences in Freiburg im Breisgau , which he later continued in Munich , Bern and Basel. He completed his studies in 1967 with a doctoral thesis on Saint-Simonism under Edgar Salin , which was also published as a book in 1970 under the title Saint-Simon and the Saint-Simonists .

After completing his studies, Rolf Fehlbaum worked for a short time in his parents' company. During this time, he and friends founded a multiples publishing house called XartCollection in 1968 . In 1970 he moved to Munich to work as an editor and producer for the Munich-based Bavaria Film Society. Between 1973 and 1977 he worked as a consultant for training and further education at the Bavarian Chamber of Architects .

Vitra

The company Vitra, founded by Willi and Erika Fehlbaum, which was originally primarily active in the field of shopfitting , began in 1957 to sell the furniture of the American Herman Miller Collection (mainly designs by Charles Eames and Ray Eames as well as by George Nelson ) for the European Market to produce under license. In 1967 the company launched the revolutionary Panton Chair . Vitra has focused on the office furniture market since the early 1970s. The idea of combining ergonomics and good design, which was new at the time , turned out to be successful. In 1977 Rolf Fehlbaum took over the management of Vitra. In the years that followed, a large number of new products were created. In 1984 the partnership with Herman Miller, which had existed since 1957, was terminated by mutual agreement. As a result, the rights to the designs by Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson for the regions of Europe and the Middle East were transferred to Vitra.

The expansion of the Vitra production site in Weil am Rhein into the Vitra Campus, which began in 1981 after a major fire, was of great importance for the image of the company. Commissioned by Fehlbaum, internationally renowned architects designed a multifaceted building ensemble that attracted attention far beyond specialist circles and has become a tourist highlight in the Basel region. The Vitra Design Museum initiated by Fehlbaum was an important factor . Founded in 1989 and housed in a building by Frank O. Gehry , it has gained international recognition through its exhibition program. In the context of the company's history, the Vitra editions from 1987 were also important. At the invitation of Fehlbaum, designers and artists designed furniture objects, mostly experimental or manifesto-like, which were produced in limited numbers. In terms of design history, the research and exhibition project “Citizen Office. Ideas and Notes for a New Office World », which culminated in a traveling exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum. In cooperation with Andrea Branzi , Michele De Lucchi , Ettore Sottsass and James Irvine, an office vision was developed that was based on the then revolutionary thesis that the office was not just a working space, but also a living space. The resulting idea of ​​also taking into account the emotional and social needs of employees when designing offices has since had a lasting influence on the formulation of contemporary office concepts.

After Vitra's focus was on the area of ​​office furniture from the 1970s to the end of the 1990s, Fehlbaum initiated a reorientation around 2002 that also included the world of living. As part of a discussion process with Jasper Morrison and the brothers Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec , the concept of the Vitra Home Collection, based on the idea of ​​collage, was developed. The collection, launched in 2004, includes Vitra classics and contemporary designs. In 2005 Rolf Fehlbaum retired from the operational management of Vitra. Until July 1, 2013 he was Chairman of the Board of Vitra and has since been active as Chairman Emeritus and Board Member for the company.

Design and architecture as life themes

"Balancing Tools" by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen
Zaha Hadid's fire station

Due to his parents' business connections, Rolf Fehlbaum came into contact with designer personalities such as George Nelson or Charles and Ray Eames at an early age - initially primarily as an interpreter for his father. In 1960, a month-long trip to the USA gave me the opportunity to meet George Nelson in New York , the Eames in Los Angeles and Alexander Girard in New Mexico . A close relationship developed with Nelson in particular, which was of crucial importance for Fehlbaum's understanding of design. At Herman Miller in Zeeland, Michigan , Fehlbaum also got to know a corporate culture that was new to him and not only focused on business , which had a strong influence on him.

Already in the 1960s, but increasingly in the 1970s, the focus of Fehlbaum's interest was on Italian design. This resulted in the collaboration between Vitra and Mario Bellini that began in 1979 and continues to this day . The connection to Italian design remained important. In 1985 the cooperation with Antonio Citterio began . In 1994, Alberto Meda was joined by a third Italian. In line with general design developments, Fehlbaum's horizons broadened in the late 1980s. The first Vitra Edition from 1987 is also an indication of this, as is the collaboration with Jasper Morrison that began in 1989. Since then, there have been similar intensive collaborations as with him with Maarten van Severen, the brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, and with Hella Jongerius . Fehlbaum also worked with a number of graphic designers over a long period of time. Pierre Mendell has shaped the visual appearance of Vitra for many years and also designed the well-known word mark with the dot. In the 1990s there was an intensive, also personally close relationship with Tibor Kalman, from which, among other things, the book "Chairman Rolf Fehlbaum", published in 1998, emerged. Most recently, there was a comparable cooperation with Cornel Windlin , who designed the first Vitra Home catalogs and in 2008 conceived the publication “Projekt Vitra” with Fehlbaum, in which the company's history, self-image and products are presented.

Architecture developed into the second main theme of Fehlbaum. In the early 1980s he worked with Nicholas Grimshaw , whom he commissioned after a major fire on the company site in Weil am Rhein to build new production halls and develop a master plan for the site. In the mid-1980s, stimulated by his acquaintance with Frank O. Gehry, he moved away from the idea of corporate architecture associated with Grimshaw's plan in favor of a pluralistic concept. Since then, buildings by architects as diverse as Frank O. Gehry ( Vitra Design Museum and Factory, 1989), Zaha Hadid (fire station, 1993), Tadao Ando (conference pavilion, 1993), Alvaro Siza (factory hall ) have been built on the Weiler Vitra site , 1994), Herzog & de Meuron (VitraHaus, 2010) and SANAA (production building, 2011). Apart from the two most recent projects, they were architects who were commissioned by Fehlbaum before they developed into the international "stars" they are known as today. His election to the jury of the Pritzker Prize , to which he was a member from 2004 to 2010, was a recognition of his commitment to contemporary architecture. In addition to his role as an entrepreneur and builder, Fehlbaum is also a collector. A collection of Japanese toy robots, primarily a result of personal hobby, documents his interest in everyday and popular culture. In the case of the collection of industrial furniture designs that began in the early 1980s, however, professional motifs played a role from the start. It formed the basis for the collection of the Vitra Design Museum, the expansion of which Fehlbaum is still actively involved today.

Awards (selection)

Works

  • Saint-Simon and the Saint-Simonists. From laissez faire to economic planning . Kyklos-Verlag, Basel 1970 ( dissertation , University of Basel 1967).
  • Cornel Windlin , Rolf Fehlbaum (ed.): Project Vitra. Places, products, authors, museum, collections, signs; Chronicle, glossary . 2nd corrected edition. Birkhäuser, Basel 2008, ISBN 978-3-7643-8592-7 (content: 1957-2007).

literature

Movie

  • The magician of the chairs. Rolf Fehlbaum and his Vitra design. Documentation, Germany, 1996, 45 min., Script and direction: Horst Schäfer, production: Südwestfunk Mainz, first broadcast: May 31, 1997

Web links

Interviews

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ About Vitra. ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vitra.com archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: vitra.com , accessed on November 15, 2014.
  2. ↑ Founder of Vitra AG
  3. ↑ Michael Baas: The artistic eye of the office. In: Badische Zeitung , December 15, 2012, (100 years of Ray Eames).
  4. ↑ "Project Vitra" -Besprechung by Thomas Wagner: Terrible, these many office disaster! In: FAZ of February 29, 2008, p. 41.
  5. ↑ Kai-Uwe Scholz: Heir to the Throne, Sitzriese , in: mobil , 2002, No. 10, pp. 10–11, ISSN  0949-586X
  6. ↑ Book cover: Chairman Rolf Fehlbaum ( Memento from July 20, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
personal data
SURNAME Fehlbaum, Rolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fehlbaum, Rolf Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss entrepreneur for home and office furniture
DATE OF BIRTH April 6, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel , Switzerland