USM
A Swiss family firm since 1885, USM builds the modular Haller system: steel, glass and chrome, endlessly reconfigurable.
The company began in 1885 as a metalworking shop in Münsingen, near Bern. In 1961 Paul Schärer Jr. asked the architect Fritz Haller to design a new factory; a furniture system followed, and its ball connector was patented in 1965.
Series production started in 1969 with an order of 600 workstations for a Paris bank. The system is still made in Münsingen by the same family, and has been in the permanent collection of New York's MoMA since 2001.
