Family jewels: Theia by Freifrau

Within the German furniture industry, there is only a relatively small number of companies that produce locally. Of the ones that do, the majority are long-established family businesses that are carrying on traditions and who rely on long-established networks. The latter also applies to Freifrau, the difference being, however, that the manufacturer is only ten years old. In 2012, Hansjörg Helweg founded the brand with the aim of producing furniture in Germany that would be sensual, aesthetically bold and, of course, comfortable. The name of the company refers to such 'feminine' attributes with a wink, and the furniture also bears exclusively female first names.

By the time he founded Freifrau, Helweg was in his late forties. The trained carpenter had already been working in the furniture industry for more than thirty years by that point, and decided it was time to start something of his own, something new. And this, he has successfully done: year on year, the Freifrau brand has been growing and is now one of the most important German producers of designer furniture. For three years now, his sons Niklas and Marc have also been on board as Helweg himself slowly starts to take a step back. Freifrau is a family business set on fast forward – with traditional values in its DNA but with the future firmly in focus.

Sebastian Herkner, who has just completed his second design for Freifrau with the Theia chair, appreciates Freifrau's progressive attitude and sustainable inner values. He talks about how this decision to choose local partners, working with quality and ecology in mind, quickly became an advantage in the time of lockdowns and crippled global supply chains. The first meeting for the new model, the Theia chair, took place in the middle of the pandemic. ‘We were able to visit each other easily by car or train. The craftspeople and producers are local and the short distances meant we were able to enter into direct exchange and move the development forward quickly,’ Herkner explains. While the manufacture of entire product lines at other companies could fail because of a crate of special screws getting stuck somewhere in international shipping traffic, at Freifrau in Lemgo things continued to move forward. ‘This was further proof that Freifrau's decision to produce locally was the right one, for many reasons,’ says the designer. The crisis year of 2020 was the most successful year in Freifrau's history so far, because many Germans invested in their homes – but also because Freifrau was also able to deliver its furniture.

That Freifrau is a family business was another aspect that appealed to Herkner. ‘There is a different kind of cooperation. At Freifrau, there is a mutual basis of trust with respect and continuity,’ he says. Dialogue is important to him because, among other things, a design idea sometimes needs discussion. With Theia, which he has been developing for the last two years, he met continuously with Helweg and his two sons to first discuss the sketches, then the 3D-printed models and finally the first prototypes, on which they all sat to try them out. ‘My design was a challenge to the producer. For Theia, you needed a bit of courage, and I was very grateful that Freifrau got involved,’ Herkner says. ‘The striking detail, the opening in the back, is not so easy to implement in terms of craftsmanship because the upholstery here has to be sewn shut by hand – a very elaborate manufacturing step for a series product.’

Herkner has also taken an unusual approach to the design of Theia. Instead of making the seat shell the centre of its design, here, rather, it's the frame. ‘The metal tube not only forms the base, it runs over the back and seems to embrace the chair. This is reminiscent of the fine setting of jewellery.’ Freely following Dieter Rams' design thesis that ‘Good design is honest’, the technical construction is not hidden but, on the contrary, prominently staged to become an aesthetic element. In this way, Herkner brings the upholstery and base into a balance of meaning with each other. ‘The frame not only forms the feet, it also accentuates and defines the seat. During development, we thought long and hard about whether or not to open up the back. I found this element very important because the frame circumscribes the recess.’ Theia also cites designs from the 1960s with its fine, strictly upholstered shell and enclosing metal frame. The design is restrained yet expressive, which makes it a universal piece of furniture that fits in just as well in the contract sector as it does in private living spaces. Herkner sees his design as a logical extension of Freifrau's portfolio: ‘The character of a brand results from the sum of its products and with each new design, you can add an attribute or bring another language into the programme.’

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