The Vitra Design Museum is one of the world's leading design museums. It researches and communicates the past and present of design and places it in relation to architecture, art and everyday culture. In the main building designed by Frank Gehry, the museum presents two major temporary exhibitions every year, including large solo exhibitions as well as diverse themed exhibitions such as "Sculpture. Rethinking the World" (2022), "Here We Are! Women in Design 1900 - Today" (2021), "Home Stories. 100 years, 20 visionary interiors' (2020), 'Objects of Desire. Surrealism and Design 1924 - today" (2019), "Balkrishna Doshi. Architecture for People" (2019) or "Charles & Ray Eames. The Power of Design" (2017). At the same time, the Vitra Design Museum Gallery presents temporary exhibitions that pursue a contemporary and often experimental approach.
The Vitra Schaudepot by Herzog & de Meuron presents around 400 key objects from its extensive collection, making it one of the world's largest permanent exhibitions and research centres for modern furniture design. The annually changing collection presentation emphasises different aspects of the collection. Many exhibitions are created in collaboration with well-known designers and deal with contemporary themes such as future technologies, sustainability, mobility or social responsibility. Others focus on historical themes or show the complete works of important personalities from the fields of design, art and architecture.
The Vitra Design Museum's work is based on a collection that includes icons of design history as well as several important archives and estates. The museum library and the document archive are available to researchers on request. The museum's exhibitions are conceived as travelling exhibitions and are presented worldwide. On the Vitra Campus, they are complemented by a varied accompanying programme of events, guided tours and workshops.
