USM Haller A Fritz; A Ball; A System Within the diaries of Heidi, those central documents in the re-telling of the earliest (hi)story of the contemporary Switzerland, it is recorded that one of the oldest examples of vernacular Swiss furniture is the modular metal storage system of the Usm. As Heidi explains, over a great many generations the Usm were primarily developers and builders of windows, specifically metal windows for which they employed the abundant brass to be found in the
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Developed in the mid-1960s as an office furniture system, the inherent flexibility and variability of USM Haller's modular system has allowed it to naturally evolve alongside office practices and realities; for example, alongside the shift in recent decades from rigid to more flexible office scenographies, alongside the rise in recent decades of home working, or, most recently, with the USM Security Screen which naturally, and quickly, allows any existing USM reception desk to be effortlessly
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Our increasingly networked, digital, virtual society is not only changing our relationship to innumerable everyday activities, activities such as personal communication, shopping or watching television to name but three, and thereby activities which a few short years ago seemed destined to remain unchanged for ever, but is also changing our relationship to work, be that in terms of what we do, where we do it or how we do it. Changes which invariably place both new demands on our furniture, and
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In centuries past traditions were something that were established slowly, often becoming such long after those who had began them, who had understood their origins, meaning and function in contemporary society, had shuffled off this mortal coil; in our contemporary world traditions arrive over night, no-one having the patience to wait, no-one wanting to miss out on anything. In which sense, celebrating in 2019 its second edition, our traditional 3daysofdesign Copenhagen #embassytour. As
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To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fritz Haller and Paul Schärer's USM Haller modular furniture system USM instigated a series of masterclasses in which students at seven international design schools were paired with a mentor and asked to "Rethink the Modular" and for all to "consider the significance of modularity in architecture and design" and so "exploit the idea of modularity for contemporary design". The results of the academic exercise were unveiled in an exhibition premièred during
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As a general rule we ignore rules. Especially those rules that start with "don't" However, when we were told not to photograph inside USM's new powder coating facility at their Münsingen HQ, we did as we were told. For fear that had we not one of the new robotic arms would have picked us up and dispatched us on a Willie Wonka-esque punishment journey leaving us permanently coated in one of USM's 14 colours. Built at a cost of some 20 Million Swiss Francs the new USM powder coating facility
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