Visit Your Local PBS Station PBS Home PBS Home Programs A-Z TV Schedules Watch Video Support PBS Shop PBS Search PBS

Frank Gehry
Vitra Design Museum

Location: Weil-am-Rhein, Germany
Date: 1989

Features from the Web about this building:

Official Site

Great Buildings Online

Guggenheim

Galinsky.com

Figure/Ground

Frank Gehry: “I love the shaping I can do when I’m sketching. And it never… occurred to me that I would do it in a building. The first thing I built of anything like that is Vitra… in Germany.”

Bob Geldof, Musician: ” I was in a band, touring Europe. I was into the fifth week and I was in that sort of twilight state that occupies most of your days when on tour… I was just looking out at the fields of Germany. And across a plain green field, suddenly this alarming structure reared up and jolted me out of this state. We got to Freiburg and I asked what was it I’d just seen back there and they said, ‘Oh that must be Vitra’.”

Rolf Fehlbaum, Chairman, Vitra: “To my knowledge it’s the first building where that new freedom, and the new movement came. The snake, for instance, that staircase is a snake, and that was something very new for me… I come from Switzerland… a very static country, a very static architecture. And I think that the attraction was that there was something strange, a bit messy, but in the end, these forces unleashed found a new order.”

 

Share    Print    Email    comments (0)

Loading ... Loading ...
post a comment
Please note that the THIRTEEN editorial staff reserves the right to not post comments it deems to be inappropriate and/or malicious in nature, as well as edit comments for length, clarity and fairness. No solicitations or advertisements will be allowed. Users may link to other Web sites relevant to discussion, but most often links to commercial Web sites will not be permitted.