The Oudolf Garden and the Tsuyoshi Tane Garden House of the Vitra Campus

17 June 2022

The Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein (Germany) near Basel is a complex of contemporary architecture that combines the Swiss furniture manufacturer Vitra’s cultural, commercial, production, research and design facilities in one location.

Since its opening in 1989, the site has been transformed by the addition of buildings by world-renowned architects into one of the world’s leading furniture design and research centres with a unique permanent collection and temporary exhibitions in the Vitra Design Museum.

The Oudolf Garten (garden) completes the concept. The garden decorates the architecture and complements the museum, storage, production and other buildings, giving them new perspectives.

Some 30,000 plants with different flowering periods and life cycles create a garden with constantly changing colours throughout the year. The Dutch garden architect Piet Oudolf (1944) calls his combination of plants a “community”, which fits in with the “furniture design community” of Vitra.

Winter 2024

Other Swiss companies and cultural institutions apply the same concept, for example, the Novartis Garden and its recently opened medical pavilion and the Merian Gärten (gardens) in Basel, the Paul Klee Zentrum in Bern, the Gletscher Garten in Lucerne, the Kirchner Museum in Davos, the Attisholz-Areal in Solothurn, the Pierre Gianidda Fondation in Martigny, the Hermitage and the new Museum Complex plateforme 10 in Lausanne and various other organisations, which combine nature, culture, art, industry and architecture.

The Swiss Spectator will feature some of these institutions in Switzerland and surrounding regions, for example, the Rheingärten and the recently opened landscape park in Neuenburg am Rhein.

(Source and further information: Vitra Design Museum, www.design-museum.de).

Piet Oudolf, planting design.Vitra Design Museum

Tsuyoshi Tane, The Tane Garden House (2023)