Wilkhahn (Wilkening + Hahne GmbH+Co.KG), based in
Bad Münder
Bad Münder (also: ''Bad Münder am Deister''; West Low German: ''Bad Münner'') is a town in the Hamelin-Pyrmont district, Lower Saxony, Germany. It is on the south side of the Deister hills in the Deister-Süntel valley, about northeast of Ham ...
,
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...
, is a German manufacturer of office furniture. The brand is well known for its range of ergonomic office chairs and tables. Founded in 1907 by Friedrich Hahne and Christian Wilkening. The name of the two founders was later used to create the name Wilk-hahn in 1954.
[Wolf, Brigette, (Spring 2002), “Wilkhahn: A tradition of the cutting edge”, Design Management Journal]
The sons of the founders,
Fritz Hahne and Adolf Wilkening took over the reins of the company after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and continued to make wooden chairs and furniture until the mid-1950s.
[Schwarz, Rudolf, 1997, More than Furniture: Wilkhahn an enterprise in its time” ] The introduction of new materials such as steel,
fibreglass
Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass clo ...
, and newer fabrics for upholstery, and the early development of plastic enabled Wilkhahn to transform the business from a highly manual craft to a modern industrial production company with international operations. As a result, the modern chair evolved, with notable releases as the
FS Line,
Picto,
Modus, A-line and
ON.
Wilkhahn is also known for the architecture of its production sites, the pavilions in wood-hanging construction by
Frei Otto
Frei Paul Otto (; 31 May 1925 – 9 March 2015) was a German architect and structural engineer noted for his use of lightweight structures, in particular tensile and membrane structures, including the roof of the Olympic Stadium in Munich for ...
, already famous for his work on the
Munich Olympic Stadium
Olympiastadion () is a stadium located in Munich, Germany. Situated at the heart of the '' Olympiapark München'' in northern Munich, the stadium was the main venue for the 1972 Summer Olympics.
The original capacity was maximally and officiall ...
, and the production halls by architect
Thomas Herzog
Thomas Herzog (born 3 August 1941) is a German architect from Munich known for his focus on climate and energy use through the use of technologically advanced architectural skins. He began with an interest in pneumatics and became Germany's young ...
.
History
In 1907, Friedrich Hahne and Christian Wilkening founded a chair-making factory in Eimbeckhausen near Hanover. They made solid beech chairs from wood from nearby forests. The manufacturing plant did not differ much from the other approximately 100 small and medium-sized chair manufacturers in the area.
In the 1940s Fritz Hahne and Adolf Wilkening took over their fathers' chair factory.
Business ran well, but they looked for new design paths and took up contact with Walter Heyn, the director of Deutsche Werkstätten, and with designers such as Georg Leowald and Herbert Hirche whose work was influenced by the
Bauhaus
The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...
and the
Deutscher Werkbund
The Deutscher Werkbund (English: "German Association of Craftsmen"; ) is a German association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists established in 1907. The Werkbund became an important element in the development of modern arch ...
.
In the 1950s, the company obtained designers such as
Herbert Hirche Herbert Hirche (20 May 1910, in Görlitz – 28 January 2002, in Heidelberg) was a German architect and furniture and product designer.
Herbert Hirche studied from 1930 to 1933 at the Bauhaus in Dessau and Berlin.. Retrieved 29 October 2014 His t ...
, Georg Leowald,
Roland Rainer
Roland Rainer (1 May 1910 – 10 April 2004) was an Austrian architect.
Born in Klagenfurt, Roland Rainer decided to become an architect when he was 18, so he studied at the Vienna University of Technology. His thesis was about the Karlsplatz in ...
, Jupp Ernst and Helmut Lohmeier.
Wilkhahn became a pioneer of German industrial design, experimented with new materials and evolved its own distinct design. This resulted in purist furniture, the form of which was developed in strict adherence to function.
In 1954 Wilkhahn was one of the first German companies which introduce a company pension scheme. This marked the foundation stone for the Wilkhahn corporate culture. Fritz Hahne, who managed the company from 1946 to 1982, looked for new ways of enabling employees to share actively in the company's success. He established the maxim "No orders without explanations". The goal: a relationship based on partnership and responsibility.
At a staff meeting in December 1970 Fritz Hahne announced a 50% profit-sharing scheme for employees to come into effect in January 1971. As dormant partners, staff today have significant shareholdings of the company's capital.
In 1980 Klaus Frank and Werner Sauer developed a new office swivel chair following intensive ergonomic studies and series of tests. The
FS-Line marked the consistent implementation of the principle of dynamic sitting. More than 2 million of these chairs have been sold to date.
In this decade Wilkhahn also became more international. Sales offices and subsidiaries were established, foreign trading and license partners were retained to work for Wilkhahn. Today, business outside Germany accounts about 50% of total sales.
In 1987 new production sites – pavilions in wood-hanging construction by
Frei Otto
Frei Paul Otto (; 31 May 1925 – 9 March 2015) was a German architect and structural engineer noted for his use of lightweight structures, in particular tensile and membrane structures, including the roof of the Olympic Stadium in Munich for ...
– were built.
The production halls in Eimbeckhausen have been completed in 1993. They were designed by
Thomas Herzog
Thomas Herzog (born 3 August 1941) is a German architect from Munich known for his focus on climate and energy use through the use of technologically advanced architectural skins. He began with an interest in pneumatics and became Germany's young ...
and have been regarded throughout the world as a model of aesthetic and environmentally compatible building construction.
In 1995 the
Picto swivel chair was developed by Wilkhahn.
In 2005 the Aline chair was presented to the public.
Wilkhahn celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2007. In 2009 was the market launch of the new
ON chair, which has a three-dimensional dynamic sitting arrangement.
[https://fis.dshs-koeln.de/portal/files/1875505/design_report_special_ON.pdf ]
Designers
The opportunity to form shapes from the new materials such as steel, fibreglass, and newer fabrics for upholstery inspired Wilkhahn designers:
*1954–1957 Chairs designed by Georg Leowald for the home and office
*1955–1959 The three-legged chair introduced, based on Walter Papst’s design. This chair was to be reinstated in 2009 and is made from solid timber.
*1971 The introduction of the first two-piece swivel chairs designed by Wilhelm Ritz.
*1980 The introduction of chair with many seating variants.
*1991 The first office chair designed completely under ecological criteria designed by Burkhard Schmitz and Franz Biggel. Created from eight different recyclable,
CFC
CFC, cfc, or Cfc may stand for:
Science and technology
* Chlorofluorocarbon, a class of chemical compounds
* Cardiofaciocutaneous Syndrome, a rare and serious genetic disorder
* Subpolar oceanic climate (''Cfc'' in the Köppen climate classific ...
free materials.
Sustainability
Concern about environmental issues started back in the 1970s with the appointment of an environmental manager to develop the company’s future ecological strategies. Wilkhahn was one of the first German companies to achieve the environmental accreditation now known as the
ISO 14001
ISO 14000 is a family of standards related to environmental management that exists to help organizations (a) minimize how their operations (processes, etc.) negatively affect the environment (i.e. cause adverse changes to air, water, or land); (b ...
Standard and
EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme). It was the first time a complete Input-Output analysis had been tested in a furniture company under
scientific control
A scientific control is an experiment or observation designed to minimize the effects of variables other than the independent variable (i.e. confounding variables). This increases the reliability of the results, often through a comparison betwe ...
.
References
External links
*
“Wilkhahn: A tradition of the cutting edge”
{{Authority control
Furniture companies of Germany
Industry in Lower Saxony