WK living

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WK Wohnen Vertriebs GmbH
legal form GmbH
founding 1912
Seat Rheda-Wiedenbrück
management Oliver Höner, Alexander Höner (managing partners)
sales 120 million DM (1997)
Website www.wk-wohnen.de

The WK Wohnen GmbH is a supplier of furniture . The company is based in Rheda-Wiedenbrück in East Westphalia in North Rhine-Westphalia . The products are offered under the brand name WK Wohnen .

history

With more than a hundred years of history, WK Wohnen is one of the oldest brands in the furnishing industry. The origin of the company is the "Interest Group of German Workshops for Apartment Art", which Arthur Schubert founded in 1912 as an association of furniture stores in Düsseldorf. The aim of the association was to promote the general understanding of modern, quality-oriented facilities through education and own designs. In the following year, the “WK-Möbel” brand was introduced. At that time, the range mainly consisted of bedrooms, study and dining rooms.

Paul Griesser was appointed artistic advisor in the 1920s; The first WK assembly furniture came from his pen. After a forced dissolution due to the war in 1944, Erwin Hoffmann re-founded the WK group four years later. Otto Beringer designed the “WKS 1” program in 1949 and thus laid the foundation for economic recovery. Models such as the "WK-Satink" living room range by Georg Satink or the first dismountable furniture range "WKS 8 - Constructa" (both 1952) were other important design developments.

From 1967 a series of design-oriented plastic chairs were produced; In the same year Ernst Martin Dettinger created the "WK 478" cube system, consisting of white lacquered cubes with colored handle strips. The modular seating group "WK 550", also a design by Dettinger, made the idea of ​​the "living area" popular. In 1987, WK presented the “trion” furniture line by designer Kurt Ziehmer . In 1988 "trion" was included in the German selection of the Design Center Stuttgart .

The complete WK archive was transferred to Die Neue Sammlung , State Museum for Applied Arts, Munich, (today: The International Design Museum Munich) in 1991 and made available for scientific research.

In the course of a change of ownership, the WK-Verband was formally dissolved in 2012 and transferred to a system of vertical cooperation. The collection has been thoroughly revised, and the circle of trading partners has also been restructured and expanded.

Assortment and sales

The WK Wohnen range now includes living rooms, upholstered furniture, coffee tables, dining tables, chairs, bedrooms and ambience items such as carpets and lights.

The products are produced and selectively sold at around 30 selected locations. The WK collection is also available in Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. In total, the WK Wohnen brand is currently offered exclusively by almost 120 furniture stores.

Awards

For its contribution to the world exhibition in Brussels , the WK Association was awarded the certificate of honor in 1958: Within the German department, WK furniture represented the main contingent of the series furniture shown there. The kitchen facility "Triennale" was opened in 1960 during the XII. Triennial in Milan honored. In addition to other design prizes , WK Wohnen has received the Red Dot Design Award seven times since 1997 , including two for designs by Stefan Heiliger .

literature

  • Hans Wichmann: German workshops and WK Association 1898–1990 . Prestel, Munich 1992. ISBN 3-7913-1208-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ WK Wohnen a story in design. ( Memento from September 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Hans Wichmann German workshops and WK Association 1898-1990. Prestel, p. 152
  3. ↑ WW. Retrieved June 14, 2020 .
  4. ^ Hans Wichmann German workshops and WK Association 1898-1990. Prestel, p. 153
  5. ↑ WK Wohnen - 100-year-old with handover. Retrieved June 14, 2020 .
  6. ↑ http://www.awmagazin.de/design-style/designerportraets/artikel/100-jahre-wk-wohnen
  7. ↑ WK WOHNEN: Home ›WK WOHNEN. Retrieved June 14, 2020 .
  8. ↑ WK Wohnen - 120 partners under one roof. Retrieved June 14, 2020 .
  9. ^ Hans Wichmann German workshops and WK Association 1898-1990. Prestel, p. 152
  10. ↑ Design awards.

Coordinates: 51 ° 50 ′ 33.9 ″  N , 8 ° 17 ′ 48.2 ″  E