VS United special furniture factories

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Vereinigte Spezialmöbelfabriken GmbH & Co. KG

logo
legal form GmbH & Co. KG
founding 1898
Seat Tauberbischofsheim , Germany
management Philipp Mueller
Number of employees 1,569 (fiscal year 2019)
sales EUR 253.6 million (2019 financial year)
Branch Furniture maker
Website www.vs-moebel.de

The Vereinigte Spezialmöbelfabriken , based in Tauberbischofsheim , is a company founded in 1898 which, in addition to equipping educational institutions, also operates office and contract facilities.

history

prehistory

Albert Ramminger (1851–1898), a trade instructor in Tauberbischofsheim since 1876, started his own business in 1888. Ramminger & Stetter, a predecessor company of VS, manufactured the patented Columbus school desk in Tauberbischofsheim from 1890 - a robust piece of furniture with cast iron sides and movable pendulum seats. At the inventors' fair in Paris in 1891, the Columbus school desk was awarded the Great Gold Medal.

Foundation of VS

Rettig Bank

The VS company was founded as the United School Bench Factory on May 15, 1898 through the merger of four school furniture manufacturers, including Ramminger & Stetter, Tauberbischofsheim, and P. Johannes Müller, (Berlin-) Charlottenburg (manufacturer of the Rettig Bank ). The production site is Tauberbischofsheim.

Centenary and foundation of a school museum

On the initiative of Paul Johannes Müller, the VS range was expanded to include all school furnishings from 1901. In 1905 the VS received a new company name: Vereinigte Schulbankfabriken became Vereinigte Schulmöbelfabriken . From 1907 the company worked together with the Deutscher Werkbund , in particular with the architects Richard Riemerschmid and Bruno Paul . Before the outbreak of World War I, VS employed around one hundred people in Tauberbischofsheim. As early as 1927, statistics from the Association of German School Furniture and Blackboards show the VS as the largest school furniture factory in Germany. The skid-base chair designed by Karl Nothhelfer is patented in 1952. The VS sled-base chair shaped class furnishings in the 1950s and 1960s. Around six million copies will be sold by 2006 - one of the longest-lasting products in German post-war history. Since 1996 VS has been gradually developing a comprehensive range of furniture for holistic office furnishings.

In 1998 the company opened a VS school museum (Hochhäuser Straße 8) in Tauberbischofsheim with the permanent exhibition “The classroom. School furniture from the end of the 19th century until today. "

The US in the 21st century

VS company premises in Tauberbischofsheim

In 2001 all administrative workplaces in the new German Bundestag in Berlin (Jakob Kaiser and Paul Löbe House) will be equipped with VS furniture. Since 2008 the "ActiveBoard" has made interactive lessons possible. VS is developing complete solutions for this purpose with an integrated close-range projector. In 2014, the construction of a new assembly plant for all table types with around 7000 square meters of floor space began at the Tauberbischofsheim site. The “productive move” was carried out in 2015.

The VS factory outlet in Werbach

In 2019, the VS factory outlet moved to a former hardware store in Werbach , where chairs, tables, desks, cupboards, shelves, roll containers, upholstered furniture and stools for school, office and home are offered on almost 600 square meters. Most of the time, returns and exhibits are sold at special prices. VS uses the remaining area of ​​the over 6,000 square meter area as a warehouse for furniture, visual media and factory equipment. The former building materials warehouse was also rented.

Products

repertoire

The classic repertoire in the field of school equipment includes school desks and seating furniture for students and teaching staff, as well as desks and school desks in the past . There is also office furniture , furniture for the living room and lounge area , furniture for the all-day school area , cabinet furniture and small parts. In addition, a complete room structure and workplace design is offered for companies.

Product design and architecture

VS works with internationally known designers and architects on product design. These include Jean Nouvel , Martin Ballendat , Verner Panton , Egon Eiermann , Günter Behnisch and Stefan Behnisch , Hubertus Eilers and Peter Brown. In cooperation with Verner Panton, various chair families with different seat shells and bases were created from 1993 onwards. Furniture from the Egon Eiermann collection, which set standards in the 1950s, was shown in the Museum of Modern Art in New York , among other places .

With VS, Günter Behnisch developed a desk with a characteristic free-form surface. In cooperation with his son Stefan Behnisch , a further development was developed, with which the administrative workplaces of the new German Bundestag were equipped in 2001. Behnisch also designed the administration building in Tauberbischofsheim, which was inaugurated in 1998. The characteristic shed roof construction on part of the company complex and an administration building were built in 1959 based on designs by Karl Nothhelfer.

In 2012 VS acquired the rights to the furniture designs from the international style architect Richard Neutra and launched a collection on the market in 2013. The A + D Architecture and Design Museum Los Angeles devoted a five-week exhibition to this furniture series, first launched by VS, in 2014. The Boomerang Chair from this series received a Special Mention at the German Design Award in 2015. The chair inspired the German sculptor Rolf Lieberknecht for the installation Boomerang Tango.

Corporate structure

The company is still family-owned today. Almost two thirds of the workforce work in production, which is located at the Tauberbischofsheim location. Among other things, the central production areas for plate and steel tube processing are anchored here.

Branches and locations in Germany

Throughout Germany, 70 of our own specialist advisors as well as the four VS branches with planning offices and project managers offer individual advice and planning on site. Sales, export, manufacturing, purchasing and the press department are located in Germany. The German market is divided into the following areas:

Branches:

  • VS South - Munich
  • VS North - Dortmund
  • VS East - Berlin
  • VS Mitte - Tauberbischofsheim

Subsidiary company:

  • VS spare parts service (via Tauberbischofsheim)
  • VS Visuelle Medien GmbH & Co. KG

Representation abroad

Abroad, VS now has three subsidiaries in France, the USA and the United Arab Emirates and cooperates with trading partners worldwide. For the global market, VS has branches, locations, contacts and representatives in:

  • Europe
  • Asia
  • Australia
  • North / South America

School museum

A lecture in the school museum in Tauberbischofsheim (2010)

The school museum opened in 1998 in Tauberbischofsheim documents the development of school and school furniture in a permanent exhibition. The exhibits include a comprehensive collection of historical school furniture and school furnishings.

Varia

  • A comprehensive chronicle of the company can be found in the book Das Klassenzimmer - Schulmöbel im 20. Jahrhundert from 1998 ( ISBN 3-7913-1890-X ) on pages 189–198.

literature

  • Thomas Müller, Romana Schneider: The classroom from the end of the 19th century until today. The classroom from the late 19th century until the present day. Ed .: VS Vereinigte Spezialmöbelfabriken GmbH & Co. KG Tauberbischofsheim . Accompanying volume for the permanent exhibition: The classroom: School furniture in the 20th century in Tauberbischofsheim. In German and in English. 304 pages, Tübingen / Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-8030-3348-2
  • Thomas Müller, Romana Schneider: The classroom - school furniture in the 20th century. Munich and New York 1998, 206 pages, ISBN 3-7913-1890-X

Web links

Commons : VS Vereinigte Spezialmöbelfabriken  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e VS: VS Chronicle . Online at www.vs.de, accessed on October 28, 2014.
  2. ↑ VS: VS Vereinigte Spezialmöbelfabriken GmbH & Co. Online at www.vs-furniture.com, accessed on October 28, 2014.
  3. ↑ a b VS: VS School Museum - The classroom from the end of the 19th century to today . Online at www.vs.de, accessed on February 5, 2017.
  4. ↑ Fränkische Nachrichten: One assembly site for all types of tables . Online at www.fnweb.de, accessed on October 30, 2014.
  5. ↑ https://www.vs.de/de/aktuelles/neueroffnung-vs-werksverkauf/
  6. ↑ VS: VS general catalog . Online at www.vs.de, accessed on October 28, 2014.
  7. ↑ VS: Design partner . Online at www.vs.de. Retrieved December 17, 2015.
  8. ^ The Museum of Modern Arts: "News from Good Design". Online at www.moma.org. Retrieved September 10, 2015.
  9. ^ Architecture and Design Museum Los Angeles: "The Neutra Furniture Collection". ( Memento from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Online at aplusd.org. Retrieved September 10, 2015.
  10. ↑ Stylepark: "Dance the Boomerang Tango". Online at stylepark.com. Retrieved September 10, 2015.
  11. ↑ a b VS: company profile . Online at www.vs.de. Retrieved April 24, 2019.
  12. ↑ a b VS: branches and locations . Online at www.vs.de. Retrieved April 24, 2019.
  13. ↑ VS: press. All around us. VS School Museum . Online at www.vs.de. Retrieved February 5, 2017.
  14. ↑ United special furniture factories: VS School Museum . Online at www.vs.de. Retrieved January 2, 2017.
  15. ^ Catalog of the German National Library: The classroom from the end of the 19th century to today . Online at portal.dnb.de. Retrieved January 2, 2017.
  16. ^ Catalog of the German National Library: The classroom: School furniture in the 20th century / ed. by Thomas Müller and Romana Schneider . Online at portal.dnb.de. Retrieved January 2, 2017.

Coordinates: 49 ° 37 ′ 42 "  N , 9 ° 39 ′ 22.5"  E