Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk (Munich)

PurplePrice Mag · October 26, 2026 · 3 min read

The Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk, the "United Workshops for Art in Craft", were founded in Munich on 6 April 1898. The idea came from the 1897 art exhibition at the Glaspalast, where a section devoted to the applied arts encouraged several Munich craft businesses to join forces. The aim was that of Jugendstil: to have artists design furniture and objects and skilled craftsmen make them with care, to be sold to a middle-class public. The company was managed by the painter F. A. O. Krüger. The artists who guided it included Richard Riemerschmid, Bruno Paul, Bernhard Pankok and Hermann Obrist, author of the famous "whiplash" embroidery.

Paris 1900 and the ocean liners

Success came quickly. At the 1900 Paris World's Fair the Vereinigte Werkstätten won the Grand Prix with three rooms furnished by Pankok, Paul and Riemerschmid: proof that the new German style could compete with French Art Nouveau. In 1907 the company became a joint-stock company, opened a branch in Bremen and received its first commission from the shipping line Norddeutscher Lloyd: the interiors of the liner Kronprinzessin Cecilie. Fitting out luxury ships became one of its specialities, so much so that in 1910 its headquarters moved to Bremen. In that same year of 1907 the company was among the founders of the Deutscher Werkbund.

Bruno Paul's "Typenmöbel"

Its most modern step came in 1908. Bruno Paul, already well known as a caricaturist for the satirical magazine Simplicissimus, designed the Typenmöbel, or "type furniture", for the Vereinigte Werkstätten: a programme of standardised, machine-made elements that could be combined in countless ways. It was a practical answer to the debate on standardisation that would divide the Werkbund in 1914, and one of the first examples of unit furniture in history. Peter Behrens was also among the designers who worked for the company.

From the twentieth century to 1991

The company went through every phase of German history. In the 1930s and early 1940s it also furnished interiors for Nazi leaders, including Hitler's private rooms at the Berghof and in the New Reich Chancellery. In 1939–1940 its headquarters returned to Munich. After the war it continued to produce quality furniture and interiors, but production in Bremen closed in the early 1970s and in Munich in 1991. The company changed its name and business and turned to property management. What remains is the furniture, now sought after at design auctions, and its pioneering role: the Vereinigte Werkstätten were among the first companies to bring artists, craftsmen and industrial production together.