Günter Behnisch is the architect of many renowned buildings such as the Olympic site in Munich, the chamber of the German Bundestag in Bonn and the Museum of Communication in Frankfurt am Main.

After studying architecture at Stuttgart Technological University, Behnisch opened his own architect’s office in Stuttgart in 1952. In 1967 he was appointed Professor of Design and Industrial Architecture and Director of the Institute of Construction Standardisation at Darmstadt Technological University.

Behnisch called for a “democratic architecture” which was to remain sceptical of all structures of rule. The function of architecture is to create freedom. This claim also found expression in the way in which his office worked. The intention was to use changing staff to counteract the danger of allowing characteristics to become law through repetition. “I would not like to see the desirable order of our society reflected in small and large geometrical grids, but rather in their possible variety,” said Behnisch.

Behnisch developed his buildings – above all the places of training – with an open centre for the purpose of communication about which the functional areas are grouped and thereby form a solidium (structural body) with many parts. This was also how his chamber of the German Bundestag in Bonn was designed as a communicative workroom, not as a room of representation – shaped by optical transparency and opening to the outside.

“My buildings are open to many things, also to changes in themselves.” Behnisch also set about designing office furniture with this architectural programme. Behnisch had already enjoyed a long collaborative relationship with VS with his numerous school buildings. Günter Behnisch and Hubert Eilers had in 1986 designed a single writing desk with characteristic irregularly shaped (freeform) top to furnish the new Leybold AG factory in Alzenau. This desk was awarded a prize in 1988 at the Orgatec trade fair in Cologne. In conjunction with VS, this item of furniture was expanded into a comprehensive table range which Hubert Eilers has continued to develop into today’s Series 901 office-furniture system.

In a life cycle of now almost 20 years, possibly solely through a clear design eluding the fast zeitgeist, the furniture has proven its qualities many times. Thus, for example, all the administrative workstations of the German Bundestag (in the Jakob-Kaiser and Paul-Löbe buildings) were furnished with tables from the Behnisch system in 2001.