Polysmiths visits the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein over the holiday seasons
Getting up close to great architecture, great chairs, and great Kaffee und Kuchen. It is a masterclass on ambitious clients working with uncompromising architects.
The first question is ‘why?’
Many have written stories about Vitra, and the buildings in the Vitra Campus. While most people are dazzled by such architecture Disneyland (my mother-in-law called it that, she’s not wrong) I think the Campus essentially is a manifestation of Vitra’s vision that everything can be great design. Vitra is about great design.
For a client to go through such great length, hiring Zaha Hadid for a fire station, and Herzog & de Meuron for a sample storage house, an SANAA for a factory building. This is a testimony to how starchitect can behave like brands, and how great architecture can augment Vitra’s brand, letting customer understand how seriously they take their design ethos.
The Vitra haus by Herzog de Meuron is, in my view, a bit of a jumbled mess: over-large spaces that wow, awkward to circulate around, and feel more like warehouses than homes. When we visited, the roofs are in the process of being redone due to rotten timber. That is for a building that is only 15 years old…
Piet Oudolf’s garden shimmers in the winter sun, it is absolutely beguiling.
Bu the most incredible building has to be SANAA’s factory building. From a far it is a huge curtain. Clad in an acrylic curtain that is glued on to the substructure, with no visible joints nor screws, the building floats almost weightless and formless, it is utterly beautiful. What is more surprising is that, despite being the largest building in the campus, it feels intimate and gentle, there’s nothing imposing about it.
When a business is serious about their vision, they make sure everything lines up with it. Vitra put their belief into action, there is good design in every detail of the Campus, even the paving. Every building works as a functional space, a unique re-interpretation of the typology, and in some respect, dare I say, a work of art.
Vitra as a beacon of good design is so vivid, so convincing.
This is something Polysmiths is striving to achieve, working closely with ambitious Clients, who have the conviction in their vision, and want to create great spaces and buildings that are physical manifestation of what they do. Better function, stronger identity, smarter investment.
