VOLA

Why it is renowned

VOLA taps are held in the design collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Cologne, the Staatliches Museum für angewandte Kunst in Munich and Designmuseum Denmark in Copenhagen.¹ MoMA's set, Arne Jacobsen's Vola kitchen and bathroom fittings of 1968, was a gift of the manufacturer; the museum describes a modular system built around one valve that sets temperature and volume in a single movement.²

The taps have been chosen for buildings such as the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, the German Parliament in Berlin, the Gherkin in London and the Victoria and Albert Museum.¹ Among the house's prizes is the Busse Longlife Design Award of 1990.¹

Recognition

• MoMA, New York²1968Vola Kitchen and Bathroom Fittings by Arne Jacobsen, gift of the manufacturer
• MoMA, New York⁸Vola Spout, single control mixer for a kitchen table, by Arne Jacobsen
• Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam¹VOLA in its design collection
• Cincinnati Art Museum¹VOLA in its design collection
• Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Köln¹VOLA in its design collection
• Staatliches Museum für angewandte Kunst, Munich¹VOLA in its design collection
• Designmuseum Denmark, Copenhagen¹VOLA in its design collection
• Busse Longlife Design Award¹1990VOLA
• Good Design Award, The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design¹2003VOLA HV1E
• German Design Award¹2019VOLA 111

The story

Arne Jacobsen won the competition to design Denmark's Nationalbank in 1961. Soon after, Verner Overgaard, the owner of VOLA A/S, came to him with the idea of a wall-mounted mixer whose mechanical parts are all hidden, so that only the handles and the spout show.³ The first VOLA taps followed in 1968, for the National Bank of Denmark.⁴ After Jacobsen's death in 1971, his former assistant Teit Weylandt, and later the design department of Aarhus Arkitekterne working with VOLA's director Carsten Overgaard, added new products to the range.⁵

The levers, handles, spouts and plates of the range keep the proportions of Jacobsen's 111, HV1 and KV1 and can be combined with one another.⁵ Every product is made to order at the factory in Horsens, in solid brass and stainless steel, and the metal left over from production is recovered and made into new cylinders.⁶ Spare parts are still supplied for every VOLA product, the originals from 1968 included.⁷

What to know it by

• HV1⁴1968Arne JacobsenOne-handle basin mixer
• KV1⁹1971Arne JacobsenOne-handle kitchen mixer
• 111⁵Arne JacobsenOne-handle build-in mixer