Vitra

Going to Vitra felt like a dream to me. Why? Hm, just because I've seen it so much in magazines, I want it badly enough that we decided to go to the very southern part of Germany just to go here. I guess I possess a bit of industrial-design self in me somehow. Who would've thought. 

Located in Weil am Rhein (am Rhein simply means it is along the Rhein), the city itself is called 'The City of Chairs'. When we arrived in the city, huge chairs are everywhere, monster size. If you walked to the river then you will see France on the other side. We would love to to that, but we were drawn so much into the greatness of the factory that we spent the whole day there.

We did the architectural guided tour. Tell you what, the area is simply amazing. There is the first Zaha Hadid's building, Frank Gehry's, Tadao Ando's, SANAA's, and the VitraHaus by Herzog & de Meuron. Too much goodness in one site, really. The factory itself is only used for assembling parts and finishing the products.

Strangely enough, I met two Indos there while we were reading books in one of the houses at VitraHaus.

It feels like IKEA, a really posh IKEA though. Gee, imagine working here. You are actually in this beautifully designed area, meeting your clients at one of the conference rooms designed by Tadao Ando (they are actually having meetings there when we were in the building), having lunch at the cafe and sitting on Erwan Bouroullec's Vegetal chair while deciding which design should go into production. Goosebumps.