december-2009

FURNITURE
TO GO
WORDS CELESTE NEILL-DUVOISIN
A vintage design store
spawns a revolutionary
online system in up-andcoming
Zürich-West
ZURICH-WEST HAS been quietly evolving
over the past 10 years into one of Europe’s
most vibrant communities. In particular,
the Kreis 5 district, which was once at the
heart of the industrial revolution in Zürich,
has recently gone through a radical change.
Old factories have been transformed into
buzzing nightclubs, better transport links
are set to enhance the area’s loft-based
residential appeal and a vast campus of
arts – the Toni-Areal factory space – is due
for completion next year.
So the handful of astute, or perhaps
just lucky, local entrepreneurs that set up
commercial businesses in the early days of
the area’s transformation are now starting
to reap the rewards of regeneration. One
such business is Bogen 33, a shop that
specialises in mid-century modern
furniture. Hidden underneath an old
warehouse, its tunnel-like rooms are
crammed with sofas, chairs, tables and
lighting from this eclectic era. It is also
home to a fl edgling, inspiring software
company, BWare, which, alongside its 29year-old
Zürich-born owner, Fabio Dubler,
perfectly represents this new forwardthinking
Swiss business generation.
Dubler fi rst set up the store in Zürich-
West in 2003 when the area was still
ignored by most of the city. He and his
friends were unknowingly part of a
renegade cultural community attracted by
BUSINESS | ZURICH INTERIORS
Fabio Dubler’s business
has grown organically
out of an interest in
20th-century design
the area’s empty, cheap warehouse spaces.
When he took out a lease on an old railway
viaduct, Dubler’s fi rst thought was to use it
as a half shop/half hangout. Friends who
helped were supplemented by all-night
parties, perhaps a little inspired by their
close location at that time to a blossoming,
and somewhat wild nightlife scene.
ONE FRIEND RANDOMLY suggested they
sell old furniture and so, using his wages
from his job as an assistant in a nearby art
gallery, Dubler spent all his spare time and
money fi lling the viaduct with any old brica-brac
he could get his hands on. “I had so
little money to build the shop that I used
to go to building sites and collect scraps of
wood lying around,” he explains. “I then
spent loads of time in the Brockenhaus
(an indoor market that sells furniture
from old house sales), buying the things
I thought looked nice, fi lling the van up
with them and storing any extra pieces at a
friend’s apartment. There really was no big
business plan. It was very organic.”
But as the rental agreement on the
viaduct ended, and Dubler started to
realise he had an eye for good design, he
quickly lost interest in partying and turned
his growing passion into a business. He
relocated to his current premises, handily
located next to hip Swiss accessory brand
Freitag, which gave him access to
DECEMBER 09 | TRAVELLER | 105