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eventually I managed to get in, and found
lots of catalogs and information. To cut a
long story short, this led me to do several
exhibitions, many of them in the United
States. During one of my trips there I read
that William Wyler had died, and I thought
it was Billy Wilder. I knew that the film
director Billy Wilder had a large collection
of pieces of bent wood, so I contacted his
family to see if I could buy some.
MSC: So you called the family.
AVV: Exactly. I called and the man who
answered was very astonished. I expressed
my condolences and proceeded to explain
who I was and what I wanted, but he inter-
rupted me saying he was Billy Wilder and
that, no, he wasn’t dead. He asked if I had
paper and a pencil to write with, and gave
me an address. That’s how we met, and we
became good friends. One of the first things
he did was introduce me to Ray Eames, who
was a big help in the beginnings of Bois-
buchet because, among many other things,
it was she who put me in touch with Rolf
Fehlbaum, Vitra’s director, with whom I
would work for many years.
MSC: I remember that at the time we met
you were working in the creation of the Vitra
Design Museum, and I – aspiring to help out
in the project as an intern without knowing
a thing about design – was fascinated by
the passion with which you spoke not only
about the future Vitra project, but also about
Boisbuchet, which then was just a bunch of
farming sheds. But at what point exactly
did you, an expert in creating collections for
museums and organizing exhibitions, decide
to shift your focus to workshops?
AVV: It’s closely connected to my origins. I
had always wanted to keep up the groupwork
I had started in Hamburg, and I wanted to
share the experience, an experience which
gave form to my life, with others, so that
many more people could live it too. So here,
again, we link the past to the future.
