Beautifully finished wooden surfaces glowing with a gentle elegance allow the wood’s natural dignity to shine through. This impression continues in the carefully coordinated colours of the stone surfaces with subtle copper highlights. As you gaze upon them, your senses are moved. But this is just one example of what a Zbären kitchen can achieve. With countless variations, they redefine kitchen design time and time again. Each client receives a space that is entirely tailored to meet his needs, in both its design and its technology; a space to make him feel good with each new day. At Zbären Kreativküchen AG, off-the-shelf designs are taboo.
I meet Benjamin and Matthias Zbären in Berne in the showroom they opened in a traditional old townhouse in 2015. The location of their showroom in such historic surroundings is part of their plan to get closer to their clients and introduce them to their kitchen designs, each of which is highly individual and masterfully crafted. Wherever I look in their showroom, I discover special details and fresh perspectives that I long to document immediately. But they don’t want our photos to give away too much, because photos cannot sufficiently convey the atmosphere that these rooms breathe. The clients need to come in person and get a feel of the numerous different design possibilities and styles of decor for themselves. It’s this inspiration that gives the thoughts of those considering a new kitchen the space to grow. And of course, they won’t be alone. The Zbären brothers give each of their clients advice and support from the very first idea through to the final assembly in their home. It doesn’t matter whether it’s futuristic or modern with traditional roots, city style or country house, with a touch of nobility or down to earth and rustic – or both at once. For Benjamin and Matthias Zbären, no challenge is too great. Unassuming but focussed, they have been managing the Zbären Kreativküchen AG business with considerable skill for several years now. They are the third generation of this family business to be offering clients a helping hand in achieving their desires. These two designers are a breath of fresh air in kitchen design, but at the same time they are committed to the traditions of this family firm. The Zbären Company is now doing business internationally, impressing clients from all over the world, from Monaco to New York, with its creativity and high quality and inspiring them with its unusual designer kitchens. But Zbären is not just about global projects in the luxury sector; anyone who appreciates flawless craftsmanship and individual designs in their private domain will be well looked after at Zbären and should not hesitate to get in touch.
Berne is the newest of Zbären’s three locations. The company’s roots lie in Lenk im Simmental in the Bernese Uplands; here on the site of the original company, their production facilities are housed in a new state-of-the-art manufacturing plant constructed in 2010. The business developed from a carpentry workshop where the company’s founders started to specialise in high-quality individual kitchens. The success of their design ethos depended on working together with the client and that is still true today. If you visit the Berne showroom or their third location at Saanenmöser in the Gstaad region, which is home to the administration and a design workshop as well as the showrooms, you might think at first that these kitchens had been assembled from prefabricated off-the-shelf units, as there is not a workshop in sight. But far from it: each kitchen and all its constituent parts are unique, manufactured in-house with meticulous attention to detail. The highest standards of quality are achieved across a whole spectrum of traditional crafts. These well-established skills make Zbären a real cottage industry, and they want to remain one. They are not striving for expansion; quality, individuality and design are their priorities. The company also places great importance on the quality of the manufacturers of high-end kitchen appliances they work with. Zbären is the only kitchen manufacturer in Switzerland which works in partnership with the Electrolux subsidiary Grand Cuisine, turning a simple kitchen into a real chef’s kitchen for the home. And high-end, multimedia solutions for totally new uses of kitchen space are integrated too. Another key mark of quality that the owners set great store by are their 30 or so employees, including more members of the Zbären family. Just like their company, they value their roots in this region.
