Zaha Hadid: Vitra Fire Station

Rolf Fehlbaum (born April 6, 1941 in Basel) is chairman emeritus and active member of the board of directors of Vitra, a family-owned furniture company with headquarters in Birsfelden, Switzerland.

Rolf Fehlbaum became acquainted with prominent designers such as George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames at an early age – initially in his role as a translator for his father. In 1960, a trip to the United States lasting several months gave him the opportunity to meet George Nelson in New York City, the Eameses in Los Angeles, and Alexander Girard in New Mexico. Fehlbaum developed an especially close relationship with Nelson, who had a formative influence on his understanding of design.

Italian design moved to the forefront of his interest from the 1960s onwards, and increasingly so in the 1970s.

Fehlbaum has also worked with a number of graphic designers.

Architecture emerged as Fehlbaum's second major interest. In the beginning of the 1980s, he commissioned Nicholas Grimshaw to construct new factory buildings and develop a plan for the company premises after a fire had destroyed a large part of the facilities. However, Fehlbaum departed from Grimshaw's plan for a unified corporate project in favour of a more pluralistic approach. Since that time, buildings have been erected on the Vitra grounds in Weil am Rhein by a wide-ranging group of architects, including Frank Gehry (Vitra Design Museum and Factory Building, 1989), Zaha Hadid (Fire Station, 1993), Tadao Ando (Conference Pavilion, 1993), Alvaro Siza (Factory Building, 1994), Herzog & de Meuron (VitraHaus, 2010), and SANAA (Factory Building, 2011). With the exception of the two most recent projects, Fehlbaum commissioned all of these architects before they became as well known as they are today.Fehlbaum's election to the jury of the Pritzker Prize, where he served as a member from 2004 to 2010, was an acknowledgement of his contribution to contemporary architecture.