New exhibition invites design fans to visit VitraHaus

Shortly after the inauguration of the Herzog & de Meuron-designed VitraHaus, a new exhibition called The Essence of Things. Design and the Art of Reduction represents an extra incentive to travel to Weil am Rhein in Germany.

"It is in the nature of human beings to seek the simplest solution," the organizers stated. "In fact, the idealism of "edle Einfalt" (noble simplicity) and "stille Größe" (quiet grandeur) pre-dates classicism, and the "less is more" principle of modern design has remained a guiding notion through the postmodernist era up to the present."

To illustrate this, the Vitra Design Museum has gathered design classics from the Thonet chair No. 14, to furniture and product design by Gerrit Rietveld, Le Corbusier, Charles and Ray Eames, Max Bill, Dieter Rams, Shiro Kuramata and Jasper Morrison up to the iPod.

The Essence of Things. Design and the Art of Reduction opens on March 20 and runs through September 19. The museum, which will be closed until March 19 due to construction works, just inaugurated its VitraHaus, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, which serves as a museum for Vitra's furniture collection, adding to the existing Vitra campus that already features houses by Frank Gehry, among others.

http://www.design-museum.de