Alfred Altherr junior
Alfred Altherr junior is often described as the "protagonist and mentor of „Swiss modern living culture". This exuberant description does not come from anywhere! He was outstanding as a designer, architect, museum director, teacher and lecturer, exhibition planner, co-initiator of the award "Die Gute Form" and also as managing director of the Swiss Werkbund. Even decades later, the results of his educational and journalistic work still have an effect, as do his design achievements in architecture in particular. He was one of the main contributors to the development of Swiss living culture in the modern age and it was an extraordinary concern of his to initiate this not only for the young people in Switzerland. Design classics such as the very popular "Landi Bank" are part of his work in the field of home decor. He worked for manufacturers such as "Embru", together with European designers such as Le Corbusier, Alvar Alto, Marcel Breuer and Werner Max Moser.
Altherr junior continued to contribute his design skills to the next generation of designers, as an exhibition initiator, as a lecturer and in later years also as a director, first at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur and then at the "Kunstgewerbeschule and Kunstgewerbemuseum" in Zurich (academy and museum of arts and crafts). Many of his exhibitions served not only to present his furniture designs, but also to bring Swiss citizens closer to modern furnishing within their own home.
Alfred Altherr junior , born in 1912, was influenced early on by his father, who was himself the director of an arts and crafts school. He was then influenced by great designers such as Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret during an internship in Paris. Early in his creative period he had great success with the renowned company "Embru" when he was able to place a tubular steel lounger there. Throughout his life he was also an architect, but his work for the "Schweizerischer Werkbund" was decisive for his great life's work. His son Jürg Altherr contributed to the memory of the great name himself and promoted in exhibitions the memory of a unique time of Swiss modernism in the 1950s. Alfred Althaus jr. died fairly young in 1972.