Opening on 12 June 2024: Sabine Marcelis opens up new perspectives on living with a bold installation in the VitraHaus Loft, using a cascading colour scheme. The Dutch designer also developed new colours and covers for two iconic Vitra products by Danish designer Verner Panton. These will be launched in a limited edition as installation spin-offs.

'The philosophy behind the design closely mirrors how we created our family home,' explains Marcelis who previously collaborated with the Vitra Design Museum in 2022 on 'Colour Rush!' – an exhibition at the Schaudepot where she organised iconic Vitra archive pieces by colour. 'It features a large open space divided into functional zones, delineated by colour. We then blended my creations with those of other designers, artists, and of course, Vitra furniture to create a cohesive whole.'

Working closely with the team at Vitra, the top floor of the public VitraHaus has been transformed into an intelligently organised yet highly imaginative showcase of how colour and design can be combined with compelling results.

‘The VitraHaus Loft is the perfect canvas to display the diversity of Vitra furniture,’ explains Till Weber, Creative Director of Interiors & Scenography at Vitra. ‘It provides a collage, where we can mix and match furniture for the characters that live within it. The tones and hues Sabine has used are recognisable from the natural, organic world and they have a rich interaction with the various spaces – things are connected but do not all perfectly match.’ He adds that the loft floor has been designed with real warmth and personality to feel like a proper home interior, rather than a gallery, and Marcelis has achieved this through a rich layering of design, materials and colour.

Visitors enter from the elevator and are greeted by a cool mint green palette for the spacious living room, where they are invited to sink into a unique lounge pit created by Marcelis using Jasper Morrison’s Soft Modular Sofa. ‘The original sofa system is generally used to create L shapes, and we’ve just merged it all to form this enveloping pit,’ she explains, noting that guests can relax and enjoy projected films and views of the area around them from this cosy space. ‘I think it’s so important to have a good lounge. It can be really fun – I have a lounge pit at home as well, and it’s the core of the house. It’s so good to just jump in there.’

Another key tenet of Marcelis’s success in creating a home-like environment in the VitraHaus Loft has been her efforts to bring in artworks and design elements from far beyond the world of Vitra. Artists like Maria Pratts, Johnny Mae Hauser, Saskia-Noor Van Imhoff and Carlijn Jacobs, whom Marcelis recently collaborated with at FOAM Amsterdam are included in the mix along with Ehsan Morshed, a Berlin-based artist and pattern designer, whose special edition VitraHaus Loft printed bedsheets will also be on sale at the VitraHaus.

As a spin-off from the VitraHaus Loft installation by Sabine Marcelis, Vitra is launching limited editions of two products by Danish designer Verner Panton: the Panton Chair Classic in a curated range of colours and the Visiona Stool in selected covers.

Available from 12 to 14 June on vitra.com.
Limited to 50 pieces per cover material and colour.