Vitra

This one comes under the heading of "Long Felt Want..."

Vitra is a Swiss company that manufactures designer furniture. It's main campus is about half an hour outside of Basle, just a bus ride away. We've made about three efforts to get there and this year we did it!

Well worth the effort. The factory burned down some time ago, and instead of throwing up any old tilt-up, the family hired architects that appealed to them to rebuild the facility.

As a result you have Frank Geary's first building in Europe (not shown, but you know what it looks like...), Zara Hadid's first building anywhere (a fire station, no less) and lot's of other great stuff.

Here are some pictures...

This is the bus station out on the highway...Jasper Morrison designed it and the seats are a Vitra mainstay...

1/ 400s, at f/10 || E.Comp:-2 / 6 || 116mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 08:09:21

A bench at the Vitra Haus by Herzog and de Meuron...

1/ 500s, at f/11 || E.Comp:-6 / 6 || 48mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 06:06:59

Putting together an Eames Chair...

1/ 100s, at f/5 || E.Comp:-8 / 6 || 70mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 07:34:03

They collected architectural odds and ends...Here's a Bucky Fuller Dome, it came from a Detroit auto dealership...

1/ 500s, at f/11 || E.Comp:-4 / 6 || 44mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 04:28:52

And a first prefabricated gas station...this by Jean Prouve... though the colors look Texaco to me...

1/ 400s, at f/10 || E.Comp:-4 / 6 || 70mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 04:31:51

Here's the fire house...Ms. Hadid does bigger things nowadays...

1/ 400s, at f/10 || E.Comp:-4 / 6 || 70mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 04:44:08

Some coffee break shots...

1/ 500s, at f/11 || E.Comp:-4 / 6 || 70mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 04:32:51

and...note the chairs...

1/ 320s, at f/9 || E.Comp:0 || 70mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 04:33:16

...Alvaro Sira's brick monolith...

1/ 80s, at f/22 || E.Comp:0 || 35mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 04:37:16

Coffee breakers in the distance....

This is a part of Nicholas Grimshaw's factory building...dig the chairs...again...

1/ 400s, at f/10 || E.Comp:-2 / 6 || 35mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 05:27:30

The conference center was designed by Tadao Ando, who wasn't interested in the commission, but got talked  into it...

It's built in an old cherry orchard and he worked around most of the trees...You have to love the hard/soft contrast...

1/ 80s, at f/22 || E.Comp:-2 / 6 || 52mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 05:31:47

The entrance way was designed to keep people in a single file and get them to calm down  a bit....

1/ 250s, at f/16 || E.Comp:-2 / 6 || 48mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 05:35:31

This guy really does concrete...and he gets curves too...

1/ 160s, at f/6.3 || E.Comp:-2 / 6 || 35mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 05:48:18

Finally the largest building on the site is a manufacturing/warehouse facility with an astonishing skin...

1/ 200s, at f/22 || E.Comp:-2 / 6 || 35mm || WB: AUTO 0. || ISO: 500 || Tone: || Sharp: || Camera: NIKON D3on: 2014:10:28 05:21:57

Back to nature next time...

As always this looks better on a larger screen and clicking on  the image makes it bigger...

Thanks for looking....