For three evenings in the last week of October, Wilkhahn invited numerous guests from all over the world for a get-together after such a long hiatus. Customers, business partners, architects, and designers from Wilkhahn’s international markets enjoyed the chance to meet up in such an exceptional place. Because The Qvest hideaway designer hotel in Cologne’s Gereonsviertel had only opened two and a half years ago, shortly before the start of the pandemic. The neo-Gothic, former city archive from 1897 had served as the neighboring Gering Group’s library since 1970 before it was turned into a hotel.
Popping Up Again
Everyone at the event was also discussing the whole host of changes working environments are undergoing. To encourage interaction, Wilkhahn created a pop-up lounge in the stairwell and on the second floor of the charmingly restored building. Usually, traditional items of home furniture from the Bauhaus period and the 1950s and 1960s are dotted throughout the space, but now classic pieces of furniture for tomorrow’s world showed just how compatible they are with different eras of style.
Coordinated models from the new, multi-award-winning Yonda shell chair range and lounge chairs, stools, and side tables (additions to the family and presented for the first time) blended in just as naturally as the Asienta chair and sofa range, the Occo lounge chairs and the Insit benches with their sound-absorbent screens.
International experience dating back decades and interaction on a whole range of issues are the basis for Wilkhahn’s Human Centered Workplace concept, which sees the office primarily as a place where people move about and communicate with one another. This event was an impressive example of how the power of design can bring people together and get them talking to one another. The many options for communicating with others in large groups were just as popular as the opportunities to withdraw to a quieter space and to connect in groups of two. Wonderful hospitality, live music and plenty of delicious things to eat and drink also helped make the evenings a full success.
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