The white album: D1 and D2 by WAGNER

Nothing is made to last forever, and that's not necessarily such a bad thing – otherwise we would still be using the electric telegraph instead of smartphones, and coal stoves instead of underfloor heating. At the same time, developments that are celebrated as an innovation today may already be written off as old-fashioned in a few years' time. Of course, what is old can have charm and continue to be used, but this should not be used as an excuse to stifle innovation.

So, for designers, developers and visionaries, it is not a matter of choosing one or the other, the old or the new. On the contrary. A good example is the firm Wagner, which keeps the past alive and, in addition to design innovations such as the D1 by Stefan Diez, still produces the popular restaurant chair with which company founder Moritz Wagner achieved a real breakthrough in 1949.

By the way, it was also Moritz Wagner who warned us never to stand still and always to subordinate design to utility. New colours and materials translate the functional classic with its understated design into the here and now, and accordingly, the W-1960, the modern version of the restaurant style icon, continues to win prizes such as the 2018 German Design Award.

The Wagner-Living team’s current project – the Workspace in Progress – is therefore nothing more than a logical, further development of the company-founder’s functional approach. The starting point for the idea of designing furniture that would make the world of work healthier and more mobile, and replace the usual modular systems was the Dondola® chair joint – the linchpin of the Wagner brand since 1999.

Dondola® enables flexible, 3-dimensional sitting and is the basis for the D1 chair family designed by Stefan Diez. Many interior designers have already utilised the healthy D1 movement approach in their design projects. But Wagner has now gone a step further from offering advice and consultancy services to clients, by creating its own furniture system in order to meet contemporary design demands.

The result is the D2, a versatile contemporary furniture system which – together with the architects Pierre Jorge Gonzalez and Judith Haase and designer Stefan Diez – Wagner developed live on site, so to speak, at Bureau Mirko Borsche. The recently completed graphic design studio now serves as a showroom and at the same time a design lab, in that the D2 Office System project is constantly being developed further in practical tests.

This special cooperation began in the autumn of 2019, when Mirko Borsche rented a former doner kebab shop in Munich as his new office. Wagner and the creative teams at Gonzalez Haase and Diez Office simultaneously designed tables, shelves and chairs for the dynamic requirements of the working areas, and then Diez suggested using the building shell as an experimental space.

It didn't require much persuasion: after a functional briefing, Mirko Borsche made his rooms available for the D2-Offensive. The only condition was that the furniture should enable and facilitate the studio staff’s various work scenarios and its international operations.

As the basic material for the surfaces of the tables and shelves, the choice was made to use the uncomplicated Metawell® product, an aluminium construction panel with extreme bending stiffness and low weight. The nine-metre long work table in particular, as well as the adjustable shelves with their open edges and custom-made plug-in connections, give the office its unique character.

While the staff at Bureau Borsche are now bringing the workspace to life, for the D2 creative team the next phase of development is getting under way. On the one hand, the functionality of the parametric system is being tested and adapted to everyday studio operations, while at the same time, other materials and other possibilities are being tested in the new design lab at WAGNER headquarters in Langenneufnach.

To approximate the surface appearance of aluminium, the team decided to concentrate on grey tones in their interior design. The resulting airiness is supported by a sophisticated lighting concept. Gallery-style LED strip lighting illuminates the rooms and polycarbonate panels serve as translucent room dividers.

Wagner, Gonzalez Haase and Diez Office have accordingly heralded the future of the ‘form follows function’ design principle: by being in close proximity to the users and implementing the idea of creating a system that allows for maximum flexibility, individuality and involvement, D2 Office represents a basis-product for contemporary office planning.

As part of Workspace in Progress, the D1 family will also be expanded next year with the addition of D1 High – a standing stool – with new fabrics and leathers, as well as colours such as a muted army green, a warm Bordeaux red and a vibrant yellow. WAGNER is living proof of the fact that not everything may have been better in the past, but that yesterday can help us to produce brilliant things today.

© Architonic