Arno Votteler

Background

Arno Votteler (1929-2020) was a German product and interior designer. He was born in Freudenstadt and studied interior architecture at the Kunsthandwerksschule in Bonndorf. Until 1954 he worked as a designer at Walter Knoll in Herrenberg, then returned to study at the Stuttgart art academy and graduated there in 1955 under Herbert Hirche as an interior architect and furniture designer.

Signature Style

His work is characterized by persistence in perfecting forms and an instinct for the possible. His furniture spans lounge chairs, office chairs and working and meeting groups, and he also ran a design office whose focus was ship fit-out and furniture design.

Notable Works

For Walter Knoll he was responsible for the 368 armchair, designed in 1956 and later named the Votteler Chair. His successful designs also include the armchairs 333 M and 350 (both 1952) for Knoll, the office chair series H and the working and meeting group Kollektion D (both 1980) for Martin Stoll.

Legacy

Votteler was a professor of industrial design at the Kunsthochschule Braunschweig from 1961 and was appointed to the Stuttgart academy in 1975, where in 1980 he founded the institute for interior architecture and furniture design. He led the institute, worked on research tasks and produced numerous publications on design history. In 1959 he was one of the designers who formed the Verband Deutscher Industrie Designer (VDID) in Stuttgart, serving as its secretary.