Bad Münder. Internet platform Stylepark and the Frankfurt Messe have collaborated to create a new exhibition format: the premiere of the Design Annual, entitled "inside: URBAN" this year, will be held in the Festhalle at the Frankfurt Messe from 6 to 10 May. An international advisory council, with high-calibre members, has selected the best producers and products from the most diverse branches of industry to do justice to the claim of creating a unique showcase for first-class design.

Still a class of its own: with the Confair folding table, Wilkhahn has established a completely new type of conference table in terms of aesthetics, function and quality. Awards include: 1st prize of the Design-Week-Award, London, Best of Competition, Apex Award Chicago/USA, "Best of Category" Goed Industrieel Ontwerp, Netherlands, "Die Besten der Branche", iF Hanover, "Die Besten der Besten", Red dot, Essen, Compasso d´oro, Milan, Jubilee Award "10 out of 50", md international magazine of design.

It almost goes without saying that office furniture manufacturer Wilkhahn cannot be missing on such an occasion. After all, the company stands like hardly any other in the industry for the consistent further development of typical German modernist design, for design made in Germany in the noblest sense of the word.

With a wide application spectrum ranging from an executive office, a customer service area to a private setting: the Cana settee (design: wiege, Fritz Frenkler, Justus Kolberg) is an ingenious, multifunctional solution with clear, classic contours

Milestones as a media-real performance
Anyone looking for the special character of Wilkhahn products will inevitably encounter brand design, which the company understands as a unique combination of form, innovation and quality. In a nutshell: Wilkhahn offers products which provide the simplest, most logical and the most enduring solution for complex tasks. Many ranges that the company has on offer are longsellers and still feature among the best that the industry has to offer internationally today.

Surfaces, radii, lines: like virtually no other office chair range, Solis (design: wiege) marks a consistent design reduced to essentials in spite of a varied and sophisticated ergonomic concept.

The Wilkhahn platform for the event, designed by the wiege design studio therefore backs the power of reduction to essentials. The focus is on four milestones of Wilkhahn development which are regarded as models of excellence of  "design made in germany":

• The legendary Confair folding table (design: Andreas Störiko), which has set a new international standard for conference furniture, and has remained unrivalled until today in terms of quality, intuitive handling and aesthetics.
• The Cana versatile settee (design: Fritz Frenkler, Justus Kolberg) that can be transformed into a two or three seater or an office couch with incredible ease.
• The Solis office chair (design: wiege), which has received many awards for its clear, purist design.
• And Aline, the new skid-base chair (design: Andreas Störiko), which realizes the complex demands made on a light multipurpose chair in a convincing and self-evident way.

Stack compactly, configure casual rows with a lively visual pattern, sit in comfort - Aline (design: Andreas Störiko), the new multipurpose chair, integrates sophisticated functions into a distinct, straightforward design language

As these ranges can "do" a lot more than is apparent at first glance, the real performance is enhanced with media technology: the exhibits feature a virtual form of representation as a silhouette in the prolongation of the axis of vision. A human silhouette "discovers" the functional qualities of various furniture ranges: he pivots, folds, rotates, sits, carries and stacks - and encourages the visitor to try out what he has seen for himself on the exhibit. This media-real performance is intended to promote interaction between person and product in a playful and intuitive manner, and at the same time to emphasize the aesthetic quality of solutions.

Festhalle, Frankfurt Messe,
Stand Nr. L 16 F,
6 - 10 May 2006,
open daily 12 noon - 10 pm
Wednesday 12 noon - 8 pm

For further details and images, please contact:

Wilkhahn
Wilkening + Hahne GmbH+Co
Press + Public Relations
Fritz-Hahne-Straße 8
31848 Bad Münder
Germany
Phone: ++49 (5042) 999-169
Fax: ++49 (5042) 999-450
burkhard.remmers@wilkhahn.de