Total home design harmony?

Textile concepts from 1970-1990

27.04.2018 – 30.09.2018

“Total home design harmony” was announced by an advertising slogan of the Swiss textile company MIRA-X, whose innovative textile design became an international talking point from 1970 to 1990 and which set new standards. The exhibition focuses on three designers and design teams, respectively, who designed extensive collections for the company: Verner Panton, Trix & Robert Haussmann, as well as Alfred Hablützel and Jean-Philippe Lenclos.

In the period between 1971 and 1981, MIRA-X exclusively cooperated with the Danish designer and architect Verner Panton, who pursued the idea of offering furnishing textiles as a set that consisted of carpets, curtains and upholstering fabrics which could be coordinated. With the aspiration to create a holistic home design concept, he developed a serial product range, which in 1976 was advertised with the above-mentioned slogan.

From 1981 onwards, after the Panton era, MIRA-X additionally worked with the Swiss architect team Trix & Robert Haussmann, who cooperated with the photographer, graphic artist and concept developer Alfred Hablützel to design textiles under the name of H-design which aimed to effect visual/architectural changes to rooms. With their coordinated textiles, they aspired to design harmony but provided users with more freedom than Panton’s radical and methodical concept. MIRA-X remained faithful to its ambition to offer coordinated furnishing textiles when the company cooperated with the French colour designer Jean-Philippe Lenclos in the late 1980s. His textile collection was based on a systematic study of waves and reflections on water.

MIRA-X was a subsidiary of the big Swiss furnishing store Möbel Pfister. Backed by the financially powerful parent company and with its special status as the corporate innovation department, MIRA-X was able to attach more weight to design standards than to economic success. This situation enabled the company to cooperate with reputable designers and to make generous investments both in the design stage and in the implementation of its collections.

Curator: Annina Weber
Exhibition design: meierkolb, Luzern