Style Other / Ref.15652

Willy Guhl, Pair of Fibre Cement Urn-Shaped Planters, 1950s-1960s

This pair of planters is a fibre cement model designed in the 1950s and 1960s by Willy Guhl (1915-2004). These elegant planters are grey – leaning towards blue – with a patina resulting from natural ageing outdoors. Shaped like urns, they are decorated with three crests: at the base, at the mouth and on the widest part of the body. The base features an inventory number and a drainage hole.

Willy Guhl is a pioneer of Swiss industrial design. Eternit, a fibre cement developed for roofs and pipes, appealed to Willy Guhl because of its fibrous texture, which resists traction, breakage and climatic variations. According to him, “no construction material used so finely gives as much stability as Eternit”.

"Willy Guhl was an inventor, an experimenter, a researcher and a visionary. Despite this, he did not lose himself in utopia. He was pragmatic to the point of genius", Robert Haussman. Willy Guhl is one of those historic designers who have contributed to the international reputation of Swiss design. He is one of the great exponents of Neo-Functionalism. His father was a carpenter, and he trained as a cabinetmaker at Zurich's Kunstgewerbeschule – the Zurich School of Applied Arts, where he also taught from 1941 – before becoming head of the interior design department 10 years later. At the end of the 1940s, he carried out pioneering research into plastic furniture. He developed a knowledge of moulding techniques that would enable him to reveal himself by transposing them to a new material: Eternit, also known as fibre cement, which he was one of the first to use in Europe.

Eternit is a type of asbestos-reinforced cement with a fibrous texture that can be used to create bold new shapes. It takes the form of large slabs that can be shaped until they are dry. Originally produced for industrial use, it is both very inexpensive and extremely hard-wearing, making it perfectly suited to the manufacture of outdoor furniture.