The Vitra Schaudepot, which opened this month at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, south-west Germany, has made one of Europe’s greatest Modern design collections accessible to the public for the first time.
Designed by the Basel-based architects Herzog & de Meuron, the Schaudepot is essentially a huge shed displaying highlights of the museum’s collection. Inside are rows of tall display cases, or vitrines, filled with 400 key pieces of Modern furniture from 1800 to the present day.
Located on the borders of Germany, Switzerland and France, the Vitra Campus is five kilometres from central Basel. It was set up in the 1980s by the Vitra furniture company but is run independently. Its collection, started by Rolf Fehlbaum, son of the firm’s founders, comprises 7,000 items of furniture (nearly all from other companies), and hundreds of examples of electric lighting, as well as archives.
The Schaudepot stands close to the original 1989 museum building, which was Frank Gehry’s first European commission and has a dramatic roof structure. It was intended to house the collection, but in fact has always been used for temporary exhibitions.
The new permanent displays include early bentwood furniture, Classical Modernism by Le Corbusier and plastic objects from the Pop era. There is also a small area for temporary shows, inaugurated by Radical Design, on Italian design from around 1970 (until 17 November). The study collection, housed in the basement and by appointment only, can be seen from a distance through glass. The main display is open daily.
The Gehry building will continue to be used for temporary exhibitions; the current show is on the US designer Alexander Girard (until 29 January 2017).
Other structures on the Vitra Campus include a former fire station designed by Zaha Hadid (her first completed building), factory buildings by Nicholas Grimshaw and Alvaro Siza, a Jean Prouvé-designed petrol station, Tadao Ando’s conference pavilion, a Buckminster Fuller dome, Carsten Höller’s slide, a new Renzo Piano-designed cabin and a Claes Oldenburg sculpture.
