Birthday celebrations for a classic

It was the obvious thing to do. The “Farbe” trade fair, which is staged only once in three years, was taking place in Cologne and the company could be sure of reaching all the relevant target groups there. And so Erfurt made the decision to bring forward the upcoming celebration of 150 years of Raufaser to the 150th anniversary year of the classic wallpaper’s presence in the marketplace. Accordingly, 2013 has become the year of this long-established product. Woodchip wallpaper was invented in 1864 by Hugo Erfurt, a pharmacist and grandchild of the company’s founder, Friedrich Erfurt. In his search for a velours-like material he coloured woodchips and so produced a textured paper for walls. The initial manual method of production was soon followed by a mechanical process. Although the paper was origi­nally used only in shop window dressing, sales to private indivi­dually experienced a boom at the beginning of the twentieth century. The reason for this: woodchip wall­paper offered entirely new possibilities of room design through its individual overpaintability. Then the wall covering enjoyed a regular renaissance in the eighties and, since that time, has been a genuine classic in the area of creative wall design. Over the years the development of Raufaser has had a crucial influence on Erfurt as a company. The products available today range from the classic woodchip wallpaper with a fine, medium or coarse structure, through to Rauvlies that can simply be hung using the wall adhesion technique, as well as the new-style Rauvlies designs Swing and Stripes, which allow for the creation of indivi­dually tailored walls. “In terms of health sensitivities, Raufaser wallpaper can be used without hesitation,” says Martin Erfurt, who heads the family-owned company in the seventh generation. “Since the manufacturing process does without any solvents, plasticisers or PVC, and mainly uses recycled paper, this timeless wall covering is pollution-free, breathable, moisture-regulating, and even compostable,” he continued. As one way of cele­brating its success story the company is making a limited bonus offer: “150 years/150 metres”, or the extension of the large 125-metre roll to 150 metres, still at the original price. But Erfurt does not intend to rest on past laurels. Constantly in search of progress and innovation, the company has now brought into being the Erfurt Laboratory. This is a lab designed for expe­riments on all aspects of former, current and future Erfurt…