If you’re going to stick nobility into a laundry basket, it had better be brilliant.
She wants a “seat protected from the wind”? Wilhelm Bartelmann must have appeared rather forlorn as he scanned his workshop for inspiration. His gaze fell upon a large laundry basket. Wilhelm, tugging at his beard, stood the basket on its end, and a wide grin spread across his face. The idea for the world’s very first wicker beach basket chair was born. It would change his life. Demand for the cozy strandkorb chairs grew rapidly.
More and more producers of the new “basket” chairs entered the market. One of them was the young master weaver Carl Martin Harder. In 1925, he founded what is now Germany’s oldest existing wicker beach chair factory. Today, the factory is called Strandkorb. It’s been located in the spa town of Heringsdorf since 1933. Unlike Emperor Wilhelm, the factory was able to survive even the stormiest of times and now takes full advantage of 90 years’ experience in building wicker beach chairs. The whims of Mother Nature, rewarding relationships with our beach going clientele, and the joy of our craft spur us on to make our wicker beach chairs even better, and to try new things.
“We’re the only ones with a beach basket chair, everyone else is building sand castles.”
A native of Lübeck, Thomas Mann loved the ocean, especially the Curonian Spit in former East Prussia. In 1929, he built a summer cottage with the money from his Nobel Prize for literature in the town of Nidden.
To ensure he could relax and enjoy his view of the ocean undisturbed, he had a wicker beach chair delivered from Lübeck, which made quite a splash.
Thomas Mann loved his wicker beach chair, not least because it was a creative refuge: “The place where I work, the most wonderful I’ve known, is secluded. But even if it were bustling there, the insulating roar of the surf, the protective sides of the beach basket chair, this singular protective little hut to sit in, would not let any disturbance encroach. A beloved, incomparably satisfying and befitting situation indeed, which my life prescribes with strict regularity!”
We’ve reached the Summit!
How do you fit five presidents, three prime ministers, and a chancellor into a basket? It’s certainly something special when Germany’s oldest wicker beach chair manufacturer is given the opportunity to bring the most powerful heads of state in the world closer together. That was a very unique challenge. But the G8 Summit beach chair in Heiligendamm was just one of a number of custom designs that are part of our everyday work at Strandkorb. Our designers, carpenters, and weavers go to great lengths every day to keep reinventing the wicker beach chair.
Strandkorb is building the biggest wicker beach chair in the world.
Heringsdorf has a new landmark, and it’s a real tourist attraction. It took over 1,000 person hours to build “The Big One” on our esplanade. 3.5 cubic meters of wood, 85 square meters of material, and three kilometres of wicker. We’re glad that after the G8 Summit beach chair for Angela Merkel, we were able to come back with another sensational design. Finally, 91 summer vacationers are able to sit in the same wicker beach chair at once. You’ve got to see it to believe it!
German Gemütlichkeit in the spa town of Heringsdorf. It was 1882 when master basket weaver Wilhelm Bartelmann was commissioned in Rostock to weave a windbreak for a local noblewoman. Her name was Elfriede von Maltzahn, and she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. She did not however wish to forgo her beloved visits to the beach on cold and windy days. So the master basket weaver set to work — with typical German fastidiousness. ...more
If you’re going to stick nobility into a laundry basket, it had better be brilliant.
She wants a “seat protected from the wind”? Wilhelm Bartelmann must have appeared rather forlorn as he scanned his workshop for inspiration. His gaze fell upon a large laundry basket. Wilhelm, tugging at his beard, stood the basket on its end, and a wide grin spread across his face. The idea for the world’s very first wicker beach basket chair was born. It would change his life. Demand for the cozy strandkorb chairs grew rapidly.
More and more producers of the new “basket” chairs entered the market. One of them was the young master weaver Carl Martin Harder. In 1925, he founded what is now Germany’s oldest existing wicker beach chair factory. Today, the factory is called Strandkorb. It’s been located in the spa town of Heringsdorf since 1933. Unlike Emperor Wilhelm, the factory was able to survive even the stormiest of times and now takes full advantage of 90 years’ experience in building wicker beach chairs. The whims of Mother Nature, rewarding relationships with our beach going clientele, and the joy of our craft spur us on to make our wicker beach chairs even better, and to try new things.
“We’re the only ones with a beach basket chair, everyone else is building sand castles.”
A native of Lübeck, Thomas Mann loved the ocean, especially the Curonian Spit in former East Prussia. In 1929, he built a summer cottage with the money from his Nobel Prize for literature in the town of Nidden.
To ensure he could relax and enjoy his view of the ocean undisturbed, he had a wicker beach chair delivered from Lübeck, which made quite a splash.
Thomas Mann loved his wicker beach chair, not least because it was a creative refuge: “The place where I work, the most wonderful I’ve known, is secluded. But even if it were bustling there, the insulating roar of the surf, the protective sides of the beach basket chair, this singular protective little hut to sit in, would not let any disturbance encroach. A beloved, incomparably satisfying and befitting situation indeed, which my life prescribes with strict regularity!”
We’ve reached the Summit!
How do you fit five presidents, three prime ministers, and a chancellor into a basket? It’s certainly something special when Germany’s oldest wicker beach chair manufacturer is given the opportunity to bring the most powerful heads of state in the world closer together. That was a very unique challenge. But the G8 Summit beach chair in Heiligendamm was just one of a number of custom designs that are part of our everyday work at Strandkorb. Our designers, carpenters, and weavers go to great lengths every day to keep reinventing the wicker beach chair.
Strandkorb is building the biggest wicker beach chair in the world.
Heringsdorf has a new landmark, and it’s a real tourist attraction. It took over 1,000 person hours to build “The Big One” on our esplanade. 3.5 cubic meters of wood, 85 square meters of material, and three kilometres of wicker. We’re glad that after the G8 Summit beach chair for Angela Merkel, we were able to come back with another sensational design. Finally, 91 summer vacationers are able to sit in the same wicker beach chair at once. You’ve got to see it to believe it!
Print version of page:
http://www.strandkorb.co.uk/history/
http://www.strandkorb.co.uk/history/