Inside Vitsoe, the British company with a very long shelf life

A stack of packing containers, ready to be dispatched around the globe, sits in the course of Vitsoe’s constructing in Leamington Spa within the English West Midlands. They comprise items of its 606 shelving system, created in 1960 by the influential German designer Dieter Rams, and are destined for properties in Bonn, Munich, Kyoto, Tokyo, Seoul, Denver, Los Angeles . . . the checklist goes on.

Vitsoe (pronounced Vit-sue) is a curiosity in all types of how. An organization based by a Danish furnishings maker that was arrange in Frankfurt in 1959 however has been British since 1995; a maker of German designs that will get components from suppliers ringed round a Regency spa city; a model that has offered the identical merchandise for six many years, with solely delicate refinements.

It’s so inconceivable, and so out of step with enterprise conference, that it has come near failing earlier than, notably within the declining years of Niels Vitsoe, the founder, whose loss of life led to its switch to the UK. However it has carried on evolving to fulfill its core clients, the 15,000 architects, designers, creatives and others (together with many FT readers) who venerate 89-year-old Rams.

Rams’ unique design was deceptively easy. Metal cabinets in powder-coated impartial colors are suspended by pins from aluminium tracks which are fastened to partitions (or stand on flooring). In addition to cabinets for books, objects and data, the system consists of desks, cupboards and hanging rails, which will be lowered and raised on the pins to create an array.

Vitsoe is simply one of many modular merchandise designed by mid-century Modernists. Others embrace String, a less expensive Swedish system created by Nisse and Kajsa Strinning in 1949, and 835 Infinito shelving designed by the Italian architect Franco Albini in 1956. However Vitsoe’s sturdiness and adaptability have helped it flourish, boosted by the transfer to homeworking within the pandemic.

“Rams [pioneered] design that’s actually helpful and actually lasts, and to attain that may be very easy,” says Ilse Crawford, founding father of the design group Studioilse. “I’ve saved storage recordsdata and Dutch ceramics on our Vitsoe cabinets, and every little thing seems to be nice.” Modular furnishings fits the rental era that “needs to depart much less caught to the partitions”, she argues.

“Vitsoe is such a chic, versatile, and strong system. It’s visually highly effective and but the cabinets can nearly disappear when you populate them,” says Simon Allford, co-founder of the architects Allford Corridor Monaghan Morris and president of the Royal Institute of British Architects. “My spouse is sick to loss of life of Vitsoe, however I really like that you could all the time transfer it round. You by no means must throw something away.”

This recyclability is simply as properly, for Vitsoe shouldn’t be low-cost (I’ve some shelving that I purchased in New York and moved to London). A set of eight cabinets on two tracks for an alcove can value about £1,000 with set up, and it competes extra straight with bespoke built-in shelving than Ikea. It encourages clients to begin small, however it’s a massive funding for a lot of younger renters.

The value of entry and a way that Vitsoe is a membership for the metropolitan cognoscenti has created an nearly cult-like following amongst a sure design set. “I’m completely into it,” wrote the style designer Jenna Lyons on an Instagram publish of the cabinets in her New York residence. After I put to Mark Adams, Vitsoe’s managing director and co-owner, that a few of its clients are mildly obsessive, he replies cheerfully, “Oh sure, responsible as charged.”

The Vitsoe cult is rising. It’s nonetheless a small firm, using 80 folks, with a single constructing that mixes head workplace and meeting operations, however gross sales have risen by about 50 per cent in two years, reaching £15mn in 2021. A decade in the past, most had been within the UK, however greater than 70 per cent are actually abroad, spanning 80 international locations.

Adams has curtailed former ambitions so as to add 10 shops to its present 5 in London, New York, Los Angeles, Munich and Leamington. “I feel eight [in total] is sufficient. You may are available for 20 minutes in your option to the airport, and kind a relationship with us.” It can as a substitute rely extra on ecommerce, of which it was a pioneer, constructing software program to plan layouts 20 years in the past.

However he hopes to increase Vitsoe’s international presence in one other manner. Gross sales progress, together with Brexit paperwork and provide chain pressures because the pandemic, have made it tougher to function solely from the UK, and he needs to construct two new factories abroad. He has not determined the place, however gross sales are rising within the US and Asia, particularly in South Korea.

Stretching itself out may weaken Vitsoe’s distinctive tradition in addition to managerial management, however Adams thinks that the long-lasting nature of its merchandise means it has to maintain on discovering followers. “Our method of, ‘Purchase it as soon as, take care of it, restore it, hand it all the way down to your children’, is full madness as a enterprise mannequin,” he remarks. “It solely works in case you discover sufficient [new] folks.”

Vitsoe’s dedication to go its personal manner is apparent as we step into the huge, high-ceilinged house that types its head workplace and manufacturing facility in Leamington Spa. It’s nearly completely constructed of wooden: laminated strips of beech made in Germany that not solely kind the partitions, however the columns and beams.

It’s a calm void that absorbs the noise from groups of staff screwing collectively cupboards and desks for supply, and assembling the 620 system chairs designed by Rams in 1962. Adams compares it to a medieval barn, with a 135- metre-long central house and two aisles lit by north-facing roof home windows that open to ventilate the constructing.

As a substitute of initially using architects, Adams deliberate its kind with Martin Francis, a designer who labored on the glass pyramid extension of the Louvre in Paris, and James O’Callaghan, a structural engineer. “Grown-up Vitsoe” is Adams’ description of the kit-like body, delivered by the architects Waugh Thistleton and assembled in 23 days in 2017.

It enabled Vitsoe to maneuver from a cramped constructing in Camden, north London, and was financed in an uncommon method. The corporate issued a £9mn bond at an rate of interest of 6.06 per cent, after its 606 cabinets, and invited clients to speculate a minimum of £5,000 every. It made them extraordinarily dedicated: “Our predominant supply of redemptions is when bondholders die,” Adams notes.

Adams, who’s 61, is a talkative, inquisitive determine who typically darts off at mental tangents, from the origins of the manufacturing facility’s landscaping to the coconut coir that it used for padding in chairs as a substitute of polyurethane foam. It takes solely a short while in his presence to see that he’s absorbed in all elements of Vitsoe’s merchandise, technique, monetary construction and really existence.

He first got here throughout Vitsoe in a design store in Marylebone in 1985 after finding out zoology and dealing as a headhunter. The encounter modified his life: he left his job to work within the store (“I assumed, if I don’t do it now, I’ll miss my probability. I’ll simply climb the company ladder and be misplaced”); then turned Vitsoe’s UK distributor; and took over when it was in disaster after Niels Vitsoe’s loss of life.

The corporate is owned by Adams and Jennie Moncur, a designer who’s inventive director of Vitsoe (the couple are married). They took massive monetary dangers to make Vitsoe secure once more after taking it over, together with borrowing to supply its planning software program in 2000 — “We mortgaged our home to absolutely the restrict,” Adams recollects.

“Mark is an animal who’s all for every element, however he’s approachable. Anybody within the firm can telephone him or sit down and have lunch with him,” says Moncur. The latter is made simpler by the truth that these in Leamington take lunch communally every day at tables by a kitchen run by chef Will Leigh. A scent of baking typically fills the constructing.

Rams began working with Vitsoe solely as a facet challenge, since he was employed by Braun, a family-owned firm for which he designed radios, alarm clocks and different gadgets (Braun was acquired by Gillette in 1968). His rules for good design to be unobtrusive, long-lasting and “thorough all the way down to the final element” have influenced many industrial designers, together with Jony Ive at Apple.

The 606 system was designed for flats in-built postwar Germany and at first look little has altered because the Nineteen Sixties. However Adams has made a mess of tiny modifications, from including a small lip to strengthen the cabinets, to altering the pin designs in order that they slide into the holes on the tracks extra simply.

“There’s an understated class to Vitsoe. They’re always innovating however they don’t seem like they’re,” says Steve Evans, a professor and director of analysis in industrial sustainability at Cambridge college, who has studied the corporate. “And the way many individuals would transfer manufacturing from Germany to the UK to make high-quality precision objects? That was actually courageous.”

The problem has been eased by its location in Leamington, near Warwick and the Midlands car trade — it’s a 40-minute drive to Solihull, one in every of Jaguar Land Rover’s crops. It has a provide chain of 30 components makers inside a 90-mile radius of the constructing: it buys chrome steel screws from Hertfordshire and aluminium plates for its cupboards from Cirencester.

However this just-in-time effectivity has suffered lately. The constructing used additionally to host an area dance firm known as Motionhouse, with the dancers each rehearsing and having lunch. Their house is now taken by stacks of components and merchandise ready to be dispatched as a buffer in opposition to provide chain disruption, whereas larger costs for components have squeezed its margins.

Adams injured a knee in a biking accident final yr and needed to take day off work to convalesce. It compelled him to devolve management of the day-to-day operating of Vitsoe to others and gave him time to replicate.

One consequence was the concentrate on increasing its international footprint by constructing services abroad. Leamington value £9mn for land and building and Adams believes clients would contribute capital once more. However minibonds face tighter regulation because the collapse of London and Capital Finance in 2020, and a unique construction is required.

Progress shouldn’t be the one factor on his thoughts: there’s additionally the query of possession. Adams and Moncur have been contemplating transferring Vitsoe to a belief fairly than maintaining it of their household or promoting it to a rival. It’s a putting resolution, provided that they invested closely prior to now and will reap their rewards.

They don’t see it that manner. “Possession shouldn’t be a phrase that enters our minds a lot,” says Moncur. “We far more regard ourselves as custodians of Vitsoe. We wish to protect it and have an obligation to make sure a straightforward transition. It was actually not simple when Niels Vitsoe died.”

How many individuals would transfer manufacturing from Germany to the UK to make high quality precision objects?

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They haven’t settled on the shape a belief would take, however are influenced by the John Lewis Partnership, based by John Spedan Lewis in 1920, and German Stiftung (basis), together with these at Carl Zeiss and Robert Bosch. These put administration beneath the oversight of a belief that units the company rules.

However it could be a giant change, coinciding with bold progress plans. Adams doesn’t intend to retire quickly, and there’s no clear succession plan, however he has been taking some steps again. “I don’t intend to vanish into the sundown, however I speak about rebalancing, particularly within the gentle of my accident.”

“It’s an admirable concept however implementing it will likely be difficult, they usually might underestimate the position of Mark in bringing all the concepts behind Vitsoe collectively,” says Evans of Cambridge. “When Steve Jobs died, Apple was an unlimited firm, however Vitsoe is on the stage the place a frontrunner’s departure can result in collapse.”

Adams is undeterred. Vitsoe is used to treading its personal path, together with its previous transfer from Germany to the UK. If most enterprise is completed in a method, he’ll strive one other. “I’ve a deep drawback with a capitalist system that advantages a couple of on the expense of many,” he says, “We’re doing our little bit to vary it.”

John Gapper is FT Weekend’s enterprise columnist

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