| Product type | Console table |
| Dimensions | Overall: H 81,5 x B 103 x T 38 cm Ball centre to ball centre: H 77,5 + 4 x B 100 x T 35 cm |
| Weight | 32 kg |
| Colours |                |
| Colour chart | Request a USM Haller Colour Fan |
| Material | Panels: Metal, powder coated Structure: Steel, chrome plated Ball: Brass, chrome plated |
| Function & properties | 2 drop-down doors |
| Care | Chrome plated, powder coated and glass elements should be cleaned with a damp, light cloth and subsequently dried. Stubborn stains can be cleaned with glass cleaner or water mixed with ethanol in a ratio of 10:1 Please click on picture for detailed information (ca. 1,6 MB). 
|
| Museums | Permanent collection MoMA, New York |
| Certificates | Nicht brennbar Klasse 1 nach DIN 4102 GREENGUARD - Indoor Air Quality LEED "Grüne Richtlinie" |
| Warranty | 24 months |
| Product family | USM Haller Clothes Racks |
| Product brochure | Please click on the picture for detailed information (ca. 8,7 MB). |
With the USM modular furniture system a wide range of furniture objects can be constructed from three basic elements: metal tubes form the framework, chrome plated brass balls act as the connection points and metal or glass panels used provide decoration and cladding. The spectrum of possible configurations ranges from simple shelving constructions such as the popular USM Haller Sideboards, over tables and roll containers all the way up to to modern wardrobes. Originally, the architect Fritz Haller developed the USM furniture in the 1960s as office furniture for the new USM administrative building; however with the first large order, in 1969 for the Rothschild Bank in Paris, series production began. And thus the USM Haller success story that continues to this day. Characteristic of USM Haller shelving is its modular character and minimalist design. And the classically elegant effect created by the different surfaces and the clearly defined structure.
The architect Fritz Haller was born in Solothurn, Switzerland, in 1924 and designed a wide range functionalist buildings, such as schools, workshops and office buildings. In 1961, then USM CEO Paul Schärer commissioned Fritz Haller with the construction of new manufacturing and administration buildings, a commission for which the architect subsequently designed the USM office furniture as a complementary interior design. This is Haller's only furniture design and has become his most famous work and his modular shelving system has not only received numerous prizes but in 2001 was added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Fritz Haller died in 2012 in his native Switzerland.
The manufacturer USM Haller presents new products at the furniture fair in Milan
The USM Haller wardrobe is the result of a long history: In 1885, Paul Schärer's ancestor Ulrich Schärer founded USM as a metalworking shop and hardware store in the Swiss town of Münsingen near Bern. With the production of window closures and the introduction of general metal and sheet metal processing in the first half of the twentieth century, the business not only expanded but the conditions for the production of the shelving system by Fritz Haller were laid. Since 1969, the furniture produced in series in Münsingen; since 1988, the furniture has been protected by copyright and was classified as a work of applied art in a judicial procedure. With showrooms from Tokyo to New York, USM has made a name for itself worldwide and now focuses exclusively on the manufacture and development of USM Haller furniture. for example, in 2017 USM launched the integration of light and power supply elements into USM Haller units. In addition, accessories, such as the USM Inos boxes are offered to complete your unit
TV & Hifi furniture from USM Haller is popular with younger generations
The USM furniture system is manufactured in Münsingen in Switzerland and assembled for the German market in Leipzig. The USM Haller console table, as with the USM sideboards and many other other USM shelving systems, is composed o of chrome plated metal tubes that form the skeletal framework, small chrome plated balls which connect the tubes, and metal shelves/cladding. The shelves are powder coated in 15 different colours. When it comes to sustainability, USM relies above all on durable products: after all, if high-quality furniture, which is also extremely adaptable, theoretically does not have to be replaced by newer ones, resources for the production of new furniture are automatically saved. In addition, USM's production process places value on a careful and low-emission use of resources.
Fritz Haller designed the USM Haller furniture system in the 1960s, at a time when functionalism set the tone in design and architecture. For functionalism's protagonists, technical, functional aspects outweighed the aesthetic form; purely aesthetic elements, such as ornaments, decor or an emotional dynamic were rejected. There was a great emphasis on technical innovations, knowledge of science as well as logic and usefulness. In short: form follows function. This guideline was famously used at the Bauhaus, and reached its peak after the Second World War, not least because of economic interests: objects optimised for usefulness and mass-production being fundamental to the develop of industrial societies. Fritz Haller's multifunctional architecture and furniture systems obviously follow the demands of this functionalist style. In the case of the USM Haller tables, this is particularly evident in the minimalist design, which dispenses entirely with ornamental accessories.
Further development of the USM portfolio: storage boxes
...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...
...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 updated and reinvented for our Corona age... A landscape USM Haller quickly inhabited and where over the decades the inherent flexibility and variability of its modular system has seen it naturally adapt to the ever evolving realities of domestic life: the domestic life of both the private individual with all its personal fluctuations, high, lows and unpredictability, but also of communal society and, for example, its ever increasing collective networked, digital structure...
...With the showcase USM Haller HomeWork smow Cologne consider responses to such evolutions with the assistance of the USM Haller modular furniture system... For all that USM Haller is a modular furniture system it is fundamentally a modular architecture system...
...Staged under the title "Ambassadors of Creative Innovation" the Swiss Embassy 3daysofdesign 2019 showcase presented works from established Swiss brands such as Vitra, USM Haller, Création Baumann, Caran d'Ache or Laufen, who presented their new SAVE urine directing toilet concept realised in conjunction with Vienna based studio EOOS and Eawag, the aquatic research institute at the ETH Zürich; younger brands such as Viu eyewear or Zürich based Qwstion with their bags crafted from Bananatex, a textile made from, well, banana plants, not yet Zürcher Bananas, but if we're not all careful it may only be a matter of time, and no-one wants that; and students from the Architecture and Wood & Civil Engineering departments at the Berner Fachhochschule, who, in inter-disciplinary teams of two, considered under the title "Furniture for a Pop-up Embassy", representative, temporary, variable, momentary furniture...
...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"... In addition to presenting some truly magnificent works from the likes of Volker Albus, Ettore Sottsass or Hans Hollein Relation also featured a more detailed exploration of Fritz Haller's oeuvre than you are likely to find outwith a dedicated Haller exhibition: and a showcase which delightfully elucidated how much more Fritz Haller is and was than his modular furniture system, makes as such perfectly clear what a travesty it is that he is largely only known for his modular furniture system and so by extrapolation underscores why Rethink the Modular is as much a tribute to Fritz Haller as a celebration of system USM Haller: modular is a way of thinking...
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