The Ortner & Ortner story goes back to 1970. Laurids and Manfred Ortner were employed at the now defunct Haus-Rucker-Co concern in Düsseldorf at the time. The projects that emerged in the next 15 years oscillated between free art and architecture.
A lot of trends were anticipated and profoundly influenced in the process. Major issues such as ‘Second Nature’ - a merging of the organically evolved with the artificially created - or 'Deconstruction’ as in the dismembering and re-assembly of buildings were illustratively taken up in a number of projects and exhibitions. In the mid-1980s, their interest turned increasingly to real building tasks. Having disengaged themselves from Haus-Rucker-Co, Ortner & Ortner started up their own firm of architects and were contracted to build the Museumsquartier in Vienna, one of the largest cultural centres anywhere, in 1990.
The first thing Laurids and Manfred Ortner did when developing FSB 1159 was to analyse the already given in the form of door lever handle designs past and present. It soon became clear to them that the qualities of self-evidence and familiarity that inform the architecture of Ortner & Ortner should likewise be drawn upon when designing their door handle.
The upshot was a typical moulded-to-the-hand design that, with its canny crossovers between smooth and curving surfaces, gives its users the sense of taking hold of something long familiar. The mirror-polish variant of FSB 1159 nestles particularly delightfully in the hand. The door levers are obtainable with either AGL® heavy-duty bearings, with the option of a fire-safety capability, or standard bearings. The range is rounded off by frame door handles, with or without a crank feature, and a window handle - all in combination with oval roses. Models can be supplied in Aluminium (only available as a fire-safety variant in Austria, not EN 179-tested) and Stainless Steel.