Gaggenau Vario Cooling 400 Series:
The Grand Architectural Statement

Transforming a technical appliance into a highly emotional object of desire

The Vario Cooling 400 Series has first been introduced in 2007, bringing American sized refrigeration products to Europe. The modular concept of combining different width refrigerators, freezers, ice makers, wine coolers or fridge/freezer combinations and thus creating a custom “cooling wall” has been changing the luxury kitchen market since then.

In 2013 we started to work on the second update of the product platform, which is shared with the group-owned US-Brand Thermador. The goal was to update energy efficiency, realize some improvements in productivity, create a more user-friendly interface but most importantly to change the design impression.
Gaggenau as a brand has always been promoting the “Professional Kitchen Principle” and the previous generation of products did feature the look of clean, hygienic and impressive capacity appliances with lots of stainless steel, greenish glass shelves and bright, cold white light.
The changes of the design have mainly been focused in three areas: colour, material and finish, light concept and an overall cleaner design.

I reduced the amount of stainless-steel coloured parts and introduced anthracite grey anodized aluminium with a fine glass bead blasting, that gave the components a soft touch and beautiful matt surfaces. The transparent glass parts are now made from ultra-clear white glass to avoid the sterile impression of the greenish standard glass in combination with the stainless-steel. Other glass parts are additionally finely etched and back painted, again leading to an almost velvet like quality of touch and avoiding any reflections from the light sources.
The wooden dowels and the new accessories like bottle presenters or serving tray for the wine climate cabinets are now made from untreated oakwood, giving a more authentic look and – in combination with the new light – a much warmer impression. The light concept has been completely redefined and is using recessed warm white LED spotlights, that create brilliant and glare-free light in the appliances and stage the delicatessen stored inside.

The new design language used for the Vario Cooling 400 Series allows for a much better integration not only within open plan kitchens, but also in living or dining room environments. After the product launch at the EuroCucina fair in Milan in 2018 the range has been received extremely well on all of Gaggenau’s markets and is surpassing its sales targets, although prices have been increased significantly over the last generation of products. Moreover, our efforts to push the boundaries of the so called “white goods market” have been awarded with the prestigious IF Gold Award in March 2018.

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Photography: Bodo Mertoglu, Gerhardt Kellermann