USM Haller Storage Unit M, Customisable

The history of the USM filing cabinets, the USM Haller sideboards, and indeed all USM units begins in the early 1960s, when the Swiss company USM sought to restructure itself into a modern industrial enterprise. The then owner of the company, Paul Schärer, commissioned the architect Fritz Haller to plan new facilities. After completion of the new buildings Fritz Haller developed in 1963s interiors for the new USM Office Pavilion in Münsingen. Originally designed for the company's needs, System USM Haller went into series production six years later, following a commission for the offices of the Rothschild bank in Paris. The special feature of USM filing cabinet is now, as then the modular conception: from just three basic elements furniture can be constructed in almost every imaginable shape. In the basic structure chromed metal tubes are connected with chromed metal balls. Panels of metal or glass are used. Finally, the furniture can be customised with various accessories, such as doors, castors, locks and intermediary shelves. The individually configurable USM Filing Cabinet with doors / drawers has five compartments, which can be optionally equipped with drop-down or extension doors.

The basic USM structural skeleton can be easily, and efficiently, transported.

Historical Context

Just as with Fritz Haller's architecture so is his System USM Haller a product of functionalism. As a design principle, the concept initially arose after the First World War at the Bauhaus and developed after 1945 as the epitome of modern construction. The famous phrase "form follows function" is to this day representative of the, then, modern view that the appearance of an object has to be defined by its function. USM Haller is in many ways especially functionalist because the modular shelving system is not only designed according to the user's individual requirements, but can be retrofitted or rebuilt as often as required. In terms of art history USM furniture system, with its strict reduction to basic geometric structures, draws a connection to the minimalism of the 1960s.

System USM Haller offers a world of possibilities.

Production

All USM Haller components are produced and powder coated in the fourteen USM colours in an environmentally friendly paint process at the company's global headquarters in Münsingen, Switzerland. The final assembly for the German market is carried out in Buehl, Baden-Württemberg, or directly from the retailer or end customer. But always by specially trained USM technicians. Through shipping out individual parts for later assembly rather than fully completed units, USM saves valuable resources during the transport process during transport valuable resources. USM Haller furniture can further claim to be an ecologically sustainable product because, on the one hand only high quality, so very durable materials and are used for USM furniture, and on the other its adaptability to changing requirements means it can customized by adding new elements to existing units as required. Or completely re-designed and re-built.

Based as it is on the same construction principle, the USM factory in Baden-Württemberg can also be rebuilt as needs change.

Designer

The architect Fritz Haller was born in 1924 in Southern, Switzerland and designed various functionalist buildings, including schools, workshops and office buildings. In 1961 the then USM Junior-Chef Paul Schärer commissioned Fritz Haller with the construction of new production and administration building. Haller consequently designed the USM office furniture as a complementary interior furnishing. It was, however, to remain Haller's only furniture design to achieve any wider fame. His work as an architect and as a furniture designer share a deep understanding of systematization and the principle of construction via modular building blocks. Haller's USM shelving system has been awarded with various prizes and is included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2001. Fritz Haller died in 2012 in his native Switzerland.

USM Haller stands for a minimalist interior.