FSB 1147 product series for new Bauhaus Museum in Weimar

The Bauhaus Museum Weimar designed by Berlin-based architect Heike Hanada opened in April of 2019, the centenary year of the founding of the state-owned Bauhaus in 1919. The institution exhibits more than a thousand items over approximately 22,000 square feet of floorspace, including a number of gems from the oldest Bauhaus collection in the world. The architect selected just under 35 FSB-brand lever/lever sets for heavy-duty and fire doors and further window handles from Brakel as fittings for the interior.

The FSB 1147 product series installed was designed in mid-1920s’ Vienna by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. It is this original model, a model pared down to the most rudimentary of formal devices, upon which all similar door levers are based.

“I always very much liked the handle from Wittgenstein House in Vienna”, says architect Heike Hanada, “and that’s why I opted for the FSB 1147 model, the Wittgenstein handle. I did, however, arrange for the grips to be lengthened by an inch or so in order to give them the right proportions relative to the ten-foot-high museum doors. FSB was very amenable to my wishes. Its specialist staff understood what I was about well and oversaw the process with great patience. ” As well as stipulating a bespoke XXL variant, for instance, the noted architect’s customised remit also envisaged a smooth, though non-artificially honed, finish in “Crude Tumble-Ground Aluminium”. What’s so special about this model is that the aluminium retains a matt, almost raw quality and, with time, acquires a patina all of its own; how a handle evolves visually will to a great extent depend on how it is used. The lever-handle variant chosen echoes the rough-and-ready factory- hall feel there is to the museum, whilst the aluminium’s bright, silvery appearance emphatically complements the homogeneous steel doors in their rough concrete frame.

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

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