Design flow: 50 years of VOLA

VOLA, the Danish brand synonymous with its iconic HV1 tap and 111 mixer, both designed in 1968, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. But its famously minimalist aesthetic didn’t spring from nowhere. Indeed, back in 1961, VOLA’s founder Verner Overgaard showed his proposal for a modular wall-mounted mixer tap that concealed its unsightly mechanical parts, leaving only the handles and spout visible, to legendary Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen after he won the competition to design the National Bank of Denmark.

Although a totally new concept at the time, the idea for a simple industrially produced and finely hand-crafted mixer-tap appealed to Jacobsen since it accorded with his functionalist vision of good design. Initially created for the bank, it was put into production for general consumption soon after, and proved a resounding success.

The resulting product, whose essential, economical form comprised one circle framed by another, was satisfyingly geometric and pared-down. In the 1970s, the cylindrical mixers and taps became available in a spectrum of exuberant colours as well as neutral grey and black. By 1974, VOLA designs had found their way into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Today, the same designs are still coveted — testament both to their enduring popularity and to their sustainability. These are available in a multitude of finishes, including several metallic tones, rendering the range highly flexible.

Since the 1960s, VOLA has become a globally renowned brand, thanks to the efforts of Teit Weylandt, originally hired by Jacobsen to help design the 111, HV1 and KV1, the latter a single-handle kitchen mixer. After Jacobsen’s death in 1971, Weylandt greatly augmented VOLA's range.

In 2007, VOLA planned to establish its VOLA Academy, a handsome building housing a showroom and educational centre, which opened in 2008 when the brand turned 40. That year, in connection with the VOLA Academy, VOLA started to collaborate with the architecture practice Aarhus Arkitekterne, now called Link Arkitektur. To date, they have designed equally stylish new products together, including the clean-lined T39 heated towel rail and 060 shower head whose circular elements echo those of the HV1 and 111.

Manufactured at VOLA’s factory near Horsens in Denmark, the company’s many products have garnered international design awards. Today, they are present in such prestigious buildings as the new German Reichstag in Berlin, designed by Foster + Partners.

VOLA’s taps and accessories are now available worldwide: the company owns ten sales subsidiaries in Europe and Asia-Pacific. The brand’s anniversary celebrations started in January at the design fairs IMM in Cologne and Swissbau in Basel. Here VOLA displayed a stunning sculpture created collectively and spontaneously by its long-serving factory employees in the run-up to the anniversary — a mobile crafted from round shower heads in glamorous brushed copper, gold and stainless steel as well as black and polished chrome. A collaborative project that is crisply geometric and superbly crafted, it perfectly embodies VOLA’s philosophy and aesthetic. This unique design will be exhibited at the company’s stand at the Salone del Mobile in Milan in April.

Moreover, VOLA’s excellent craftsmanship is witnessed at its factory by the groups of international architects and interior designers who visit it once a month. What’s more, specialist installers are invited to the VOLA Academy to study every aspect of VOLA’s product range. Now a series of seven short documentary films, specially commissioned to mark VOLA’s anniversary, will introduce an even wider audience to its impeccable craftsmanship.

Meanwhile, VOLA’s streamlined, tubular 1960s taps and accessories are specified by architects and interior designers all over the world. This alone provides incontrovertible evidence of the brand’s longevity.

© Architonic