Ulm stool
The Ulm stool is a simple, robust piece of furniture made of wood that can be used in many ways.
Design, construction and manufacture
The Ulm stool is one of the most highly regarded works by the Swiss architect , artist and designer Max Bill in product design . The stool was designed in collaboration with the Dutch architect and designer Hans Gugelot in 1954 at the Ulm School of Design (HfG) , of which he has been the rector since it was founded in 1953.
Formally, the Ulm stool corresponds to the traditional wallpapering stool . "Two vertical boards, one horizontal, the three firmly interlocked, held together by a round wooden stick at the bottom" - this is how Bernhard Rübenach described the design principle of the piece of furniture in his radio essay "The Right Angle of Ulm".
The frame consists of three boards that are connected to each other with the help of finger joints on the narrow edges. The stool is 395 mm wide, 440 mm high, 295 mm deep and weighs 2.1 kg. The seat and both side walls are made of spruce wood. The transverse rod and a vertical ledge at the free ends of both side parts are made of beech wood, similar to a runner, which should prevent splintering and reduce signs of use. All wooden surfaces are uncoated.
The mechanical production took place in the university's own carpentry under the direction of the workshop master Paul Hildinger.
use
The Ulm stool is a seat, side table, lectern, part of a shelf, tray and carrying aid in one. It served as the initial equipment of the university in seminar, dining and living rooms and therefore became its symbol.
The stool is in constant use for visitors to the exhibition halls of the town hall on Ulm Münsterplatz (architect: Richard Meier ).
Exhibition in the Museum Ulm
The Ulm Museum preserves and presents various versions of the Ulm stool in the estate of the university, which it closed in 1968, for the public.
Today's production
Since 2011, a licensed re-edition of the Ulm stool has been produced by the Zurich company WB Form analogous to the original, the spruce and beech wood comes from Switzerland. The manufacturer has recently added seven variants to its portfolio - seat and both side walls in birch, glazed (in the six colors apple green, sky blue, dark blue, fire red, luminous orange, lemon yellow) or in walnut, colorless.
The Italian company Zanotta produces the model 650 Sgabillo (composed of the Italian sgabello for stool and the surname of the designer, Bill ) with differences to the original in dimensions, construction, material, surface finish and color (width 400 mm, height 450 mm, depth 275 mm, side parts without stand strips, body in birch plywood, natural wood color, surface treated or optionally in MDF board , embossed anti-scratch paint , black).
The Ulm stool is also made by a regional workshop for people with disabilities and is on sale in the Ulm Museum.
Miniature model
The Swiss furniture company Vitra produced and sold a miniature model on a scale of 1: 6 that corresponded to the original in terms of construction, material, surface finish and color (width 65 mm, height 73 mm, depth 49 mm).
literature
- Bernhard Rübenach : the right corner of ulm. a report on the college for design in ulm 1958/59. Broadcasting feature for Südwestfunk Baden-Baden, ed. by Bernd Meurer, Verlag der Georg-Büchner-Buchhandlung, Darmstadt 1988, 79 pages, ISBN 3-925376-12-7 .
- Gert Selle: Design in Everyday Life - From Thonet Chair to Microchip , Campus Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38337-8 , pp. 129-136, online excerpts from Google Books .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Anne-Sophie Levy Chambon: "The little story" of the Ulm stool. ( Memento from September 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). In: arte , November 2007.
- ^ Jörg Niendorf: Career of a piece of furniture. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 24, 2010.
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Dirk Dowald: Miniature "Ulmer Hocker". In: miniaturstuhl.de , June 22, 2014, accessed November 20, 2018, with photos.