Cultural relations: SCHÄTTI

A big station clock designed by Hans Hilfiker will soon be hanging over the main entrance to the former Therma production halls in Schwanden. For the time being, it’s still on the top floor of the history-steeped building that the Schätti brothers purchased as a brownfield site a good three years ago. 'Therma plays an important part in the cultural and social history of Schwanden,' says Thomas Schätti. And the firm plays a leading role in the story of Swiss design too. None other than electrical engineer and designer Hans Hilfiker was director of the works from 1958 until 1968.

It’s this tradition of Swiss design that Schätti sees itself as part of. The firm has been a player on the Swiss interiors market for a good eight years now – not just as a supplier but as an independent brand too. And the success of Schätti’s luminaires is based on precisely the same mix of stringency and clarity that Swiss design products are known for.

In that respect Thomas Schätti and Jörg Boner, the designer behind Schätti’s luminaire family, very definitely speak the same language. 'During our talks, we get to the heart of the design and bring it into sharper focus,' says Thomas Schätti – who, by the way, studied product design himself.

The Schätti luminaire family has evolved constantly over the last eight years. It’s become homier too. But the basic element is still the same: the narrow steel strip that’s characteristic of all the luminaires. A design statement that Hans Hilfiker would no doubt have approved of.

Text: Anita Simeon Lutz

Photo: Nicolas Bruni; Felix Wey

Schätti Leuchten
Sernftalstrasse 34B
8762 Schwanden
Tel +41 (0)55 647 34 44
info@schaetti-leuchten.ch