Vitra has manufactured furniture designs by Charles & Ray Eames and George Nelson since 1957. Building on this foundation over the years, the company has developed a wide range of furnishings for the office, for the home and for public spaces in collaboration with progressive designers.
Yet Vitra is more than just a design-oriented manufacturing company. The name also stands for the Vitra Design Museum, for a collection of modern furniture and its accompanying archive, for workshops and publications on topics of design, and for an architectural concept that unites buildings by Frank Gehry, Nicholas Grimshaw, Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Alvaro Siza, Herzog & de Meuron and SANAA at the Vitra Headquarters in Birsfelden (Switzerland) and on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein (Germany).
Click Here for More Vitra Products >>> George Nelson, born 1908 in Hartford, Connecticut, studied
architecture at Yale University. A fellowship enabled him to study at
the American Academy in Rome from 1932-34. In Europe he became
acquainted with the protagonists and major architectural works of
modernism.
He joined the editorial staff of Architectural Forum in 1935, where
he was employed until 1944. A programmatic article on residential
building and furniture design, published in Architectural Forum by
Nelson in 1944, attracted the attention of D.J. DePree, head of the
furniture company Herman Miller.
Shortly after this, George Nelson assumed the position of design
director at Herman Miller. Remaining there until 1972, he became a key
figure of American design, also convincing the likes of Charles and Ray
Eames, Isamu Noguchi and Alexander Girard to work for Herman Miller.
His collaboration with Vitra began in 1957. From 1946 onwards Nelson
also ran his own design office, creating numerous products that are now
regarded as icons of mid-century modernism.
Nelson's office also produced important architectural works and
exhibition designs. George Nelson died in New York in 1986. His archive
belongs to the holdings of the Vitra Design Museum.
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