First glass: Wagner Design Lab

Brand story by Julia Hauch
19.11.20

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s the ‘Wagner Design Lab’ – a floating pavilion set among the green surroundings of Langenneufnach, whose facade required the fabrication of the world’s largest glass panels.

Clear foresight: The new ‘Wagner Design Lab’ which combines showroom and think tank, floats like a transparent stage over the surrounding landscape

An oversized, double-sided show window hovers over the former home of the Wagner family in the midst of a beautiful natural setting. The silhouettes of chairs and other furnishings appear behind the glass facade, as if gathered together to philosophise about the future of sitting.

What looks from the outside like an open discussion, inside the glass pavilion is the new WAGNER Design Lab at corporate headquarters in Langenneufnach – which was planned and realised by the renowned architects Titus Bernhard and Andreas Weissenbach in collaboration with sedak, a leading producer of insulation and safety glass.

A project of superlatives: For the glass facade of the Design Lab, glass manufacturer sedak was required to fabricate two glass panels measuring almost 20m each in length – the largest in the world

The seemingly seamless building, which was honoured with the 2020 German Design Award, not only unites design and architecture in a harmonious whole but also reflects the WAGNER philosophy of redefining the limits of the possible. In this case, the coup is not achieved with agile, innovative chairs, but with the two 117sqm glass facades. Measuring nearly 20 metres in length, they are the largest glass panes ever incorporated into a building structure.

‘Business enterprises can achieve great things with courage and a shared vision, and that in a dual sense in this case – the large panes also represent the big idea that lies behind them,’ emphasises Peter Wagner. The result is a building that not only reflects the brand’s high standards, but also symbolises its willingness to embrace the new – which makes it the perfect place to cultivate further innovations behind the glass.