Due to his teaching at Kunstgewerbeschule Zurich, which lasted nearly 39 years, and his wide- ranging practical work Willy Guhl is regarded as one of the most important pioneers of industrial design in Switzerland.

Having established himself as a cabinet- maker in the 40s he turned to product design for industrial mass production after he entered the contest „Low- Cost Furniture Design“ at MoMA, New York.

He experimented with mouldings of the human body to achieve the perfect form for ergonomically shaped loungers. Then he refined these mouldings and by using Eternit´s fiber concrete - a material formerly unusual for furniture-making - in 1955 he created an design icon: the famous ‚Strandstuhl‘.

This weatherproof outdoor chair, consisting of an endless loop, has the air of a minimalistic sculpture and is in production till now. With this chair and some other designs that he developed for the company Eternit like an standard ashtray in the form of a spindle, Willy Guhl became a trailblazer of the so- called take- away- furniture. Fuelled by his fame as an exponent of the swiss neo- functionalism he became an idol for generations of students of the industrial, product and furniture design across the whole of Europe.