Alfredo Häberli Design Development

Residencies offer a suitable opportunity to bring the highlights of Swiss design to the world. This was the message of Ambassador Benedikt Wechsler, who worked in Denmark and resided in a villa north of Copenhagen. Under the title Swiss Design in Residence I created a presentation including a programme of events. Five rooms were available on the ground floor of the villa: the Entrée, connected in an enfilade to the Dining Room, the Small and the Large Salon, as well as the flexible extension, which is suitable for events of all kinds. The rooms serve the Ambassador and his family for official receptions and private events. At the dining table, which the company Girsberger realized according to my design, a dozen guests are comfortably served. They sit on chairs by This Weber and Alfred Roth's bar carriage replaces a sideboard. Not only in the dining room the furniture leads across history and parts of the country. In the Small Salon, the side tables of the Terrazzo Project (Lausanne, 2015) meet an icon of post-modern design, the Terrazza DS 1025 sofa, designed by Ubald Klug in 1973. The historical collage continues in the Grand Salon: Here Hannes Wettstein's Delphi sofa for Danish producer Erik Jørgensen meets Trix and Robert Haussmann's Knoll armchairs 310 (1962). The arrangements are also intended to appeal to the Danes with their desire for cosiness, warmth and formal refinement: «Hygge» must be what suits them. Accordingly, I selected furniture that offers an alternative to the image of engineer-driven Swiss design. In this way, rooms were created as showcases without sliding into sterile showrooms, and became an example of both relaxed and professional «cultivation of the Swiss image abroad», as required by federal law.