The Independent Source for Products, Materials and Concepts in Architecture and Design.

About Wilkhahn

Few companies have influenced Germany's office and contract furniture sector as strongly as Wilkhahn. Over the course of many years we have adopted our own pioneering standpoint and consistently pursued this. Wilkhahn currently has a staff of over 600 throughout the world; sales outside Germany account for over 50% of the total. Even small and medium-sized companies from a high-wage country can succeed on the international market in spite of globalization and increasing cost pressure. The main requirement is, however, clear differentiation from competitors - by means of excellent product quality and a distinct corporate culture.

History

Wilkhahn has a long history. The company has developed like a personality. A personality that is committed to values and, over the course of its long experience, has continued to give a fresh impetus to general cultural and social development. We are proud of our past; we intend to shape the future with the firm commitment of being able to look back on it with pride.

Wilkening & Hahne: initially only one of many craft businesses in the area

1907 How it all started

Friedrich Hahne and Christian Wilkening founded a chair-making factory in Eimbeckhausen near Hanover. The name of the two founders was later used to create the company name of Wilk-hahn. High-quality, solid beech chairs were made from wood from nearby forests. The manufacturing plant did not differ greatly from the other 100 or so small and medium-sized chair manufacturers in the area.

Still totally committed to wood, but already evidencing a distinct design language: the 351 chair designed by Georg Leowald

1946 Dawn of a new era

Fritz Hahne and Adolf Wilkening took over their fathers' chair factory. Business ran well, but the two were not satisfied with just that. 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 movement and the Werkbund. At that time no one sensed that their fascination with experimentation would later pay off. The secret of the advance from a craft business to a company with international operations was simple: success through design.

A classic Modernist: the concourse and stacking chair 224 by Georg Leowald, designed in 1955.

1950s: At school with Bauhaus

In the 1950s the company succeeded in retaining excellent designers such as Herbert Hirche, Georg Leowald, Roland Rainer, Jupp Ernst and Helmut Lohmeier. Wilkhahn became a pioneer of German industrial design, experimented with new materials and evolved its own distinct design language. This resulted in purist furniture, the form of which was developed in strict adherence to function. Some of them were to go down in design history.

Lunch break in the workshop: with bread and beer and a prototype of the 240 model

1954 No orders without explanations

Wilkhahn was one of the first German companies to introduce a company pension scheme. This marked the foundation stone for the legendary 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. The goal: a relationship based on partnership and responsibility. The means: to subject ingrained structures and hierarchies to radical scrutiny. The maxim: "No orders without explanations".

Searching for truthful design: rocking horse or rocking sculpture? Design: Walter Papst, 1954

1960s Truthfulness

Truly revolutionary products were developed in close collaboration with the Ulmer Hochschule für Gestaltung (Ulm Academy of Design). The avant-gardists of industrial design plumbed the depths of the political dimensions of design. Consumerism and the "ad libitum" attitude to design was set against the social responsibility of designers and the "moral of things". Wilkhahn adopted one of the maxims from the founding manifesto of the Ulm designers: "Our aim is to develop sustainable products, to increase their utility value and to reduce waste."

Workers' participation? This idea was so new that it initially met with scepticism on the part of some staff.

1971 Good performance is worth it

At a staff meeting in December 1970 Fritz Hahne announced a 50% profit-sharing scheme for employees to come into effect in January 1971. With this suggestion he was even more "leftist" than the trade unions themselves. Numerous other companies shifted their production to low-wage countries; but highly motivated staff worked at Wilkhahn who could relate to the products. As dormant partners, staff today have shareholdings amounting to EUR 3.5 million of the company's capital.

Healthy sitting as a contribution to understanding among nations: our ambassador to China

1980 Sitting without a driver's lecence

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 long before its great significance had come to be realized. Instead of complicated "sitting machines" with an array of levers, dials and adjustment knobs, there was now a chair with a high degree of flexibility in terms of adjustment to individual posture, and which even encouraged movement. More than 2 million of these chairs have been sold to date and still feature in our current product portfolio.

It all works out: timeless design = design with international acceptance

1980s Wilkhahn worldwide

The 1980s at Wilkhahn were marked by international expansion. Sales offices and subsidiaries were established, foreign trading and licence partners were retained to work for Wilkhahn. Currently, business outside Germany accounts for 50% of total sales. This development confirms not only our marketing and sales policy but also our design approach.

Ecology and design are not contradictions: "Picto" has received awards from both fields.

Beginning of the 1990s: Ecological change

Wilkhahn did justice to its trailblazing status in the environmental field too: the production halls designed by Thomas Herzog, completed in 1993, are regarded throughout the world as a model of excellence of both aesthetic and environmentally compatible building construction. In 1995 the "Picto" swivel chair - made from pure, coded and completely dismountable individual components - was the first office chair in the world to be awarded the environmental label of the Dutch Milieukeur Foundation.

Flexibel: Arbeitsformen, Raumstrukturen und Möblierung

End of the 1990s: Work practices in the process of change

The Internet, start up, teamwork, self-organization, a learning society, conference techniques: these are typical buzz words of a work environment which entered a revolutionary phase of movement and since then has not stood still. Product development at Wilkhahn evolves out of an extensive analysis of modern forms of work and communication. Confair and Conrack are only two of the furnishing ranges, which evolved as a result of such an analysis, which allow scope for creativity and change, for thinking, working and living, for groups and individuals.

Preisverleihung: Fritz Hahne (li.) und Staatssekretär Siegmar Mosdorf

1999 Life's work

The Federal Award for Design Leadership was presented to Fritz Hahne. This award by the German Design Council is intended to honour those who have rendered great service with regard to the role of design in Germany. The Chairman of the Jury, Dr. h. c. Dieter Rams, remarked: "Fritz Hahne's special achievement lies in the fact that he continually showed that good product design, top quality, social responsibility and ecological awareness can also be realized in an economically successful company."

Teamwork: the Wilkhahn InteracTable with integral hardware and software allows engineers and project managers, designers and customers to meet around one table.

2000 Humankind - nature - technology

This is the theme employed by EXPO 2000 to present scenarios depicting how the future might be on the threshold to the new millennium. Our contribution: "The future of work in the field between humankind, nature, technology and the market", a special Expo exhibition in collaboration with the DGB (German Trade Union Federation), the AOK (Health Insurance Fund), the Deutsche Arbeitsschutz Ausstellung (German Safety at Work Exhibition) and the Institut für Arbeit- und Sozialhygiene (Institute for Occupational and Social Hygiene).

Philosophy

See things in perspective. Be attentive. Keep an inquiring mind. We have never believed in the idea of pure form: whoever designs furniture and interiors, does, in fact, design his or her environment and human relations. Aesthetics have always had an ethical dimension for us. For years we have consistently pursued new paths in design; for years we have been practising fair, responsible partnership. With nature, with our staff and with the technology which we employ.

Environment or turnover

"In case of doubt, the ecological aspect has priority over quick provit." Mission Statement of the Administrative Bord, 1989.

In 1992 we developed Picto, the first completely recyclable office swivel chair, and proved innovative products can be designed and produced ecologically. Environmental responsibility does, after all, start with product design. As a proactive thinker, we demonstrate our innovative strength in ecological matters too: with environmentally favourable product processes, in the utilization of environmentally compatible materials, with a sophisticated value-added packaging system, in waste disposal or in the utilization of low-solvent lacquer.

Staff leadership

„No orders without explanations“

This phrase of Fritz Hahne's became the guideline for internal communication very early on. Decisions at Wilkhahn must always be legitimized by means of arguments and not hierarchies. Such a corporate culture produces strong, self-confident individuals who can identity with their work and who are totally committed.

Architecture

An alarming number of people live and work in buildings to which they do not relate at all. How can harmonious, user-friendly products be made in an alienated, inhuman environment? A factory building can be more that merely a machine covered in corrugated iron. We were able to retain two excellent architects for our corporate architecture in the form of -Frei Otto and Thomas Herzog.

Pavillions by Frei Otto

As the architect who designed the Olympic Park in Munich, Frei Otto even became known beyond expert circles. He designed the building to house the sewing and upholstery shops when Wilkhahn planned to extend its production area in 1987. Instead of a traditional factory building the result was 4 pavilions with a light, tent-roof construction comprising suspended wooden beams. The shapes, derived from organic structures, blend harmoniously with the landscape. The interior is friendly and bright, and provides an enviable, productive working atmosphere. These pavilions, which have received numerous awards, are regarded throughout the world as models of excellence of people-oriented industrial architecture.

Production halls by Thomas Herzog

"We must build in harmony with nature - not against it"
Thomas Herzog

A covered area of 8,000 sq m - yet the production halls by Thomas Herzog still project a feeling of complete visual lightness. Three glazed hall sections with a suspended construction are sandwiched between the four "high-rise trestles"; the criss-cross steel anchor bars make the suspended structure clearly visible from the outside. In spite of its vast size, the building has a filigree appearance and ecological design down to the very last detail: with a special glazed façade for heat insulation, a largely natural ventilation system, a solar energy plant and roofs covered with plants serving as climatic and rainwater buffers set standards for environmentally conscious construction.