If you visit the Bussalp restaurant above the Swiss resort town of Grindelwald you can experience a curious, inconspicuous, almost underwhelming, piece of furniture design history. USM window fittings. Just don't expect steel tubing and chrome plated brass balls, that all came much, much later...... The story of the USM Haller modular furniture system starts in 1885 in the Swiss village of Münsingen with the establishment of a locksmith and ironmonger business by Ulrich Schärer, a
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Aside from death, taxes and heartbreak, the only other certainty in life is that you will, with an unnerving regularity, need new furniture. Not because the old furniture is damaged or no longer en vogue, but simply because your needs and requirements have changed. A furniture system that can adapt to these changing needs is thus obviously advantageous. Developed in the early 1960s by Fritz Haller and Paul Schärer, System USM Haller is such a system. Composed of a steel tube frame
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On Monday January 13th the European design circus rolls into the new year with the opening of IMM Cologne 2014 and Passagen 2014, and against our natural inclinations we'll be there, or as Ride so nearly put it; "If we've seen it all before, Why's this train taking us back again? If we don't need anymore, Why's this train taking us back again?" Yes, the rent has to be paid. But there are easier ways to earn a living than spending a week in January on the banks of the Rhein questioning your
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With autum's algid wind in our faces and the promise of mince pies and Glühwein in our tails we approached November and a design tour through Brandenburg, met Napoleon in Erfurt and discovered that the Eames plastic armchairs and plastic side chairs used to be steel......
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In 1808 Napoleon had a problem. Or better put, in 1808 Napoleon had a whole continent of problems. Spain, Austria, Finland, England, Russia, Germany, Turkey. Noone it seemed was behaving in a manner that fitted with Napoleon's grand, global plans. How, for example, was he ever to find the time to conquer India if Europe wouldn't just quietly accept French domination? In an attempt to, at least partially, find a way out of the chaos a meeting was organised with Tsar Alexander I of Russia to
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Expansion. It's not always good. Waistlines. Overdrafts. Weeks since you last phoned your mother. For example wouldn't be good. Business expansion is however good. And the best news is that (smow) continues to expand. Following on from the "original" (smow)rooms in Leipzig and Chemnitz, the (smow) online designer furniture store opened its virtual doors in 2008 before in 2012 (smow) Stuttgart joined the family. 2013 has already seen the launch of (smow) Erfurt, and since early October
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On Tuesday April 30th 2013 Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands steps down as head as the House of Orange. And Posterous closes down. One going voluntarily to ensure an smooth transition of power. The other being closed by its new owners as part of a brutal and unjust conflict for supremacy in the social media market. We discovered Posterous in 2010 by pure change, were instantly hooked by the effortless simplicity with which one could post and so Posterous became our platform of choice for all
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Imagine you spent your entire career researching and developing modular building systems. Imagine you gave the world radical new approaches to construction design and helped introduce the use of computer technology in architecture. And then imagine that most people only know your name in connection with one office furniture system. An office furniture system that you developed once as part of one contract for one company based in one small village in Switzerland. A system that despite its
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On Thursday and Friday March 15th/16th the ETH Zurich is holding a two day symposium looking at the life and work of Fritz Haller. And we won't be there. Scunner. There are a lot of reasons to want to be there; but the principle one for us is that despite his universally recognised System USM Haller, Fritz Haller himself remains something of an enigma. And so the chance to spend two days listening to experts discuss the man and his work in detail is technically something we shouldn't miss.
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As any one who has celebrated as many birthday's as us knows - there comes a point in every life where you're just not prepared to compromise on quality any more. Be it your car, your choice of airline, your hair cut. Or your office chair. When starting out in life the vast majority of us put up with cheap, uncomfortable office chairs because its easier. We know the quality isn't brilliant. But we're compromising The same can be said for desks, desk lamps and filing cabinets. Those days
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The final stage of our 2011 autumn tour took us to Neue Räume Zurich, Switzerland's largest designer furniture trade fair. And quite possibly Switzerland's most bemuddled designer furniture trade fair. We do appreciate that the organisers are trying to make Neue Räume all things to all men, and offer a wide range of products, producers and design directions. And we really liked what the organisers were trying to do. But somehow squeezing so much into such a relatively small space just
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Luddites! Not a phrase normally associated with (smow) To the best of our knowledge no (smow)employee has ever smashed an iPad or capped a WiFi service in protest at the creeping and increasingly obsessive proliferation of technology into our lives. Despite that, the early summer weeks in the (smow)HQ were dominated by the preparation and production of the very first (smow)catalogue. That's print catalogue. So on paper. With ink. Luddites? Au contraire nos amis! Not only is the
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One of the unseen aspects of the furniture industry is the relationship between dealer and producer. For most people their only contact with a furniture dealer is when buying a new sofa. Or bookshelves. And so most people assume that that it is all furniture shops do. Sell sofas. And bookshelves. However an important part of a, quality, furniture shop's business is concerned with larger scale contracts; for example fitting out offices, hotels or working with architects on a redevelopment
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Bo Bech is a baker in Copenhagen. Bo Bech bakes one kind of bread. It's available in one size. At one price. Bo Bech bakes one batch and when that batch is sold out he closes the shop. As a business concept it could not be simpler. Just try explaining it to an average German who has heart failure if presented with a choice of less than 17 types of bread. A baker ? With one type of bread ? How does it survive !?!? Which, to paraphrase the late Rabbi Lionel Blue, is a lot like USM Haller.
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While critics denounce such as an easy and obvious way to generate content - for us reviewing the past year is an important step in planning our activities for the coming year: where to go, who to talk to, what to sit on and, just as importantly, what to ignore or give up. The only real problem for us is that in preparing such we realise just how much material we haven't had the chance to use - and so receive an impression of how much more material we will acquire in the coming year. Heck!
read moreAt Orgatec 2010 we spoke to USM Haller CEO Alexander Schärer about the company's return to Orgatec after a 12 year absence, their new "Living Essentials" collection and what his own office looks like....
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What would Christmas be without hats? Father Christmas, his elves, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dave Hill.... Even the shepherds and wise men. All bemillinered. And so what could be a more festive gift than a hat rack and/or hooks. Hut Ab by Konstantin Grcic for Moormann Hut Ab is both German for "Hats Off" and a genial space saving coat and hat rack by Konstatin Grcic. When not in use Hut Ab can be folded flat and stored. When in use, Hut Ab offers numerous options for hanging and holding
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When USM Haller last exhibited at Orgatec we were still in Kindergarten and our only experience with interior design was the wonderful shapes one could create on walls with wax crayons. 12 years later and not only have we discovered that marker pens are much better suited to drawing on walls, but USM Haller have returned to Cologne and Orgatec. One of the real joys of the USM Haller system is that it has remained unchanged over the decades. Units bought 20 years ago can be extended with
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Although the Marianne Brandt Contest is on the surface about Marianne Brandt, the awards ceremony in Chemnitz on Friday stood very much under a different star. "Chemnitz - Stadt der Moderne"/ "Chemnitz - The Modernist City" Every single official speech rammed home the message; "Chemnitz - Stadt der Moderne" being repeated ad nauseum ad infinitum in the hope that if one said it often enough it may just come true. "I want a pony !" "I want a pony !" "I want a pony !" "I want a pony !" "I want
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Although it is probably fair to say that most people associate USM Haller furniture with offices, not all see it so. Partly fuelled by a desire amongst customers for individual furniture that meets their specific requirements and partly by a rise in the number of people working from home, System USM Haller is increasingly starting to dominate domestic as well as commercial settings. Kitchen units, multi-media cabinets, even baby changing tables - the flexibility of the USM Haller System is
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Fritz Haller against Egon Eiermann. While ahead of the 2010 (smow) designer furniture world cup final many bemoaned the decision of both Switzerland and Germany to play safe with their more technical formations; the match itself was one for connoisseurs. Certainly a Nils Holger Moormann for Germany or a Susi and Ueli Berger for Switzerland could have brought a little more imagination and colour to the match. But what the two old masters lacked in flamboyancy they more than compensated for
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The first semi-final of the 2010 (smow) designer furniture World Cup pitted not only two generations against each other but two approaches to design: Fritz Haller the classically trained Swiss linealist and Tom Dixon the warehouse party welder turned doyen of contemporary English design. As ever Fritz Haller began with his universally acclaimed System USM Haller formation. The international success of Haller's USM Haller system is largely due to its deceptive flexibility: It looks rigid and
read moreKnowing that they needed to defeat Fritz Haller's stable and flexible USM Haller system in order to advance the Italians choose to stick with Antonio Citterio for this all or nothing encounter. Setting quickly to work Antonio Citterio rolled out a succession of office chairs; including the Oson CE, Axess and T-chair for Vitra. However regardless of what Antonio Citterio tried, Fritz Haller always found a combination to match and ultimately took a 1:0 lead with a beautifully finished Haller
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One of the high points of Verner Panton's career came in Switzerland when in Vitra he finally found a producer for his Panton Chair. Today however there was no room for sentiment and Panton came out fighting. Picking up where he left off against Joe Colombo Verner Panton attempted a quick plastic combination, his Barboy however going just wide. Fritz Haller remained as composed and sturdy as ever, the flexibility of his classic USM Haller system allowing him to respond to whatever move Verner
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