Regrasping Gropius, Wagenfeld and Mies van der Rohe

The Franz Schneider Brakel GmbH + Co KG company salutes the Bauhaus with re-interpretations of door levers by Walter Gropius, Wilhelm Wagenfeld and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. FSB 1021, FSB 1102 and FSB 1267 are tributes to classic handles by the three celebrated designers. The FSB brand enables the original historical models to be seen through new eyes with its FSB Bauhaus Trilogy, a series of sensitive reworkings by other designers.

The collection comprises re-designs of the “Gropius Lever” by Walter Gropius and his office manager Adolf Meyer (re-issued as FSB 1102 by Alessandro Mendini), a re-interpretation of the Wilhelm Wagenfeld model (reissued as FSB 1021 by FSB designer Hartmut Weise), and a completely new product collection inspired by models authored by the last Bauhaus director Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (re-issued as FSB 1267 by Hartmut Weise).

Walter Gropius arranged for his famous door levers, which were incorporated into numerous of his projects in the 1920s, to be manufactured by the Loevy bronze works in Berlin. The designs Gropius produced together with his office manager Adolf Meyer had a defining impact on the aesthetics of Modernism. The Italian architect and designer Alessandro Mendini re-interpreted Gropius’s original door lever for FSB at a Door Handle Workshop held in 1986 in the provincial eastern Westphalian town of Brakel. Mendini’s door lever FSB 1102 supplements the cylindrical metal grip on the original with a circular engraving at its tip and replaces it with black and polychrome durohorn elements. The collection embraces variants in Aluminium and Stainless Steel (either with or without a black grip) for flush, frame and glass doors, a window handle, a lifting/sliding door handle and plug-in handles with pared-down roses for doors and windows.

In the 1990s, FSB’s in-house designer Hartmut Weise reworked the door handle by the influential Bauhaus student Wilhelm Wagenfeld and in the process created the new model FSB 1021 for the market. With its pareddown minimalist looks, it is a prototypical door lever in the Modernist vein. FSB 1021 is now available in the materials Aluminium and Stainless Steel as a handle for flush and glass doors, as a window handle and also as a plug-in handle with pared-down roses for doors.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe likewise addressed himself at length to door handles and their detailing. Many of his building projects were, for instance, lent an utterly distinctive note by versions of one of his original designs in white bronze. Mies van der Rohe devised a new handle for the New National Gallery in Berlin and chose naturally silver-coloured Aluminium as his material. Hartmut Weise marked the Bauhaus centenary in 2018 by turning two door-lever models by Mies van der Rohe into one new product. The upshot Weise arrived at – FSB 1267 – was a fusion of models the former Bauhaus director had used in his Lemke House project and in his New National Gallery. Though the new door-lever model retains the flowing transition between circular neck and flat grip, the forefinger furrow is reduced to a mere notion and the actual grip has been levelled out. Besides door levers for flush, frame and glass doors and for emergency exit devices pursuant to DIN EN 179, this new product collection also includes a window handle and plug-in handles with pared-down roses for doors and windows. FSB 1267 is supplied in Aluminium, Brass and Bronze.

FSB has respectfully interpreted the Bauhaus exponents’ door levers, models whose simplicity and purpose-driven beauty have lost none of their allure over the years, and has adapted them to present-day buildingengineering requirements. FSB 1021 and FSB 1102 are classics of the FSB range and, as of now, are also available with cut and visibly fixed backplates and roses (round or angular) and as plug-in handles for doors (with pared-down roses). FSB 1267 is directly descended from the work of Mies van der Rohe whilst nevertheless constituting a completely new product development.

About FSB

FSB is a byword the world over for visually and functionally top-quality hardware solutions for doors and windows, electronic access control and sanitary fit-outs. Architects and builders’ clients favour reaching out for products from Brakel owing to FSB’s great design expertise and its profound understanding of the requirements of modern construction. Everything in any way associated with handle culture in built spaces is catered to from a single source.

Franz Schneider
Brakel GmbH + Co KG

Anne Levy
Nieheimer Straße 38
33034 Brakel
Telefon: +49 5272 608-105

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