The VitraHaus is the newest addition to the architecture park that the furniture company Vitra has realized during the last decades on their company site. The premises now features architecture by Nicholas Grimshaw (who realized the first building after a blaze that destroyed the old building and conceived the master plan for the site), Zaha Hadid (Fire Station), Antonio Citterio, Tadao Ando, Alvaro Siza, SANAA, Jasper Morrison, Richard Buckminster Fuller, Jean Prouvé, and Frank Gehry (Vitra Design Museum).

One of the challenges the architects faced was to realize a building that didn’t dominate the existing architecture, especially Gehry’s Vitra Design Museum. The new building is no monolithic block. Instead, it looks like ordinary residential houses with saddle roof that have been stacked on top of each other randomly. For Herzog & de Meuron the very simple house form was an obvious choice, given the fact that Vitra is a furniture company. But the fact that the “houses” are crashed into each other, creates unexpected, intersecting spaces.

This video was shot during the press preview and shows the exterior as well as the interior of the new VitraHaus and an excerpt of Jacques Herzog discussing the VitraHaus concept.

VitraHaus, Press Preview. Vitra Campus, Weil am Rhein / Germany, February 12, 2010.

> Right-click (Mac: ctrl-click) this link to download Quicktime video file.