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Bill | Ulmer Stool birch | dark blue
About this product
Architonic ID: 1390246
Year of Launch: 2013
Whether used as a simple stool, distinctive side table, bedside table, shelving unit or a mobile carrying unit for books and magazines, the Ulm Stool by Max Bill is a welcome design icon. It is now also available in color or in elegant walnut.
The Ulm stool was designed in 1954 by Max Bill, the first director of the Ulm School of Design HfG, in collaboration with Hans Gugelot for the students of the HfG. Because money was tight, the seating was to be created by the students themselves. The stool had the advantage of being extremely stable and easy to transport, allowing the students to use it as a carrying unit for their books and papers.
The design was focused exclusively on functionality: The round cross bar (originally from a broom handle) gives the stool stability and also serves as a carrying handle. Therefore, the stool is very versatile and can be used as seating in two different heights, side table or as a shelving unit, but also as a carrying unit, serving tray or as a table attachment. The Ulm Stool epitomizes the phrase ‘necessity is the mother of invention’.
Today the Ulm Stool is an absolute design classic! Its popularity has increased steadily in recent years, not only because of its versatility, but also because of its formal reserve. It can be found in public spaces such as museums, galleries, showrooms, offices, hotels, schools and the private sector.
In collaboration with Jakob Bill, the only child of Max Bill, a color palette has been compiled for the newly launched Ulm Stool, which was taken from the constructivist and concrete art paintings of Max Bill.
Material
Seat: natural spruce wood
Side: natural spruce wood
Rung: beechwood
Ledge: beechwood
Dimensions
Height: 44 cm
Width: 39.5 cm
Depth: 29.5 cm
Weight: 2.1 kg
- Natural Spruce (Original), round cross bar and foot base made of beechwood (according to original design)
- Stained, Birchwood, round cross bar and foot base made of beechwood
- Walnut lacquered, made entirely of Walnut.
- Dimensions in cm: 44 / 39.5 / 29.5 (H / W / D)
- Weight 2.1 kg (natural Spruce)
Spruce, natural
Walnut, lacquered
Apple Green
Sky Blue
Dark Blue
Fire Red
Bright Orange
Lemon Yellow
Concept
The Max Bill Collection is characterised by clarity, simplicity and mathematical precision.
Max Bill’s wooden furniture is the physical expression of his belief that functionality, as well as the economy of materials and design, should be combined with meeting form-related and aesthetic demands. Bill’s designs and products are based on qualities such as functionality, longevity and an economic use of materials.
For Max Bill, industrial design was of particular importance in the economic upturn during the post-war years and because of the widespread destruction left by the war: he saw industrial design as an opportunity to improve the environment with versatile products. Following the US example, the aesthetics of things were becoming important during this period. For the first time, exemplary products – most of which were ‘anonymous’ factory designs – were given a prominent place in the magazines. Authorities like Max Bill and Siegfried Giedion had a clear attitude: they despised any design that would only serve commercial interests and that, in so doing, would follow fashionable trends, thus fostering a throwaway mentality.
Specifications
Material
Base solid wood, Seat solid wood, Tabletop solid wood, Wood
Variants
6
You can visit the product page for these variants—just click on them!
Distributors
Designers
Max Bill
Switzerland
Max Bill was a Swiss architect, graphic designer, painter, sculptor and product designer who created an impressive array of minimalist works during his lifetime. In addition to iconic clocks, watches, and other design objects, Bill designed buildings as well as numerous sculptures and paintings in his pure, refined style. Max Bill: a biography Max Bill was born in 1908 in Winterthur, Switzerland. He initially trained as a silversmith at the School of Applied Art in Zurich. He then went on to study at the Bauhaus in Dessau, and from 1929 began working in Zurich as an architect, painter, graphic artist and sculptor. Bill's output during this period was dominated by painting, which ranged from landscape paintings and portraits, to geometric and constructivist abstractions. In 1932, Max Bill joined the artist's group “Abstraction-Création” and became one of the most important representatives of the Concrete art movement. Max Bill's artistic career influenced his design practice significantly, and he became known for his use of clean lines, elegantly defined forms and precise proportions. One of the most famous examples of his work is the Chronoscope mechanical watch designed for the manufacturer Junghans, which he began work on in 1956. As the first director of the Ulm School of Design that opened in 1953 in Ulm, Germany, Max Bill tried to carry forward the Bauhaus traditions he had learned in Dessau. From 1967 to 1974, he was a professor of environmental design at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. Ulmer Stool: minimal design, maximum utility With the motto “minimal design, maximum utility,” Max Bill and Dutch designer Hans Gugelot, designed the simple Ulmer Stool for the Ulm School of Design in 1955. The stool was developed as a low cost, mass-produced chair for the students at the school, and is characterised by its extreme economy of form and material combined with clever functionality. The square, three-sided stool features a round cross bar, which is used to carry it, and also braces the two sides so that it can also be used sideways as a small table. The sturdy, lightweight stool became an instant design classic because of its flexibility, and went on to inspire generations of design students in Ulm. © by Architonic