WICONA is celebrating its 70th Anniversary

The company's history began in 1948, with the foundation of WICONA in Ulm as a separate business division of Wieland-Werke AG. Today – 70 years later – it has developed, from these humble begin-nings, into an internationally renowned brand for high-quality, technically sophisticated aluminium system solutions for façades, window and doors – a real success story!

The company's origins date back well into the 19th century: In 1820, Philipp Jakob Wieland (1793–1873) took over the art and bell foundry from his uncle, Thomas Frauenlob in Rosengasse, Ulm, and started manufacturing utensils made from copper alloys. The next important phases were the change to the production of tubes and profiles (1901) and the foundation of Wieland-Werke AG (1919).

In 1948, WICONA was established as a design office for extruded profiles for the building industry, as a separate business division within Wieland-Werke. The experience gained with profiles made from archi-tectural bronze were transferred to aluminium material. The name originated as an acronym: Wieland Constructions in Aluminium.

In the 1950s, the product ranges included profiles for shop windows, display windows and roller shut-ters, handrail and stair guard profiles, standard profiles and aluminium alloy sheets. They were deliv-ered directly to locksmiths and joineries in the Ulm area. Year after year, the profile range was continu-ally expanded.

The construction of a warehouse at the company's headquarters was the next step in the company's expansion. Even then, there was a hallmark: the intensive customer consultancy in application and processing.

With the registration in 1953 of WICONA as a trademark, there began the consistent and determined expansion of the distribution network, first in Germany, then in Austria (around the end of the 1950s), France (1967), Switzerland (1975), Denmark (1978), Spain (1980), Italy (1981) and the UK (1982).

In 1988, WICONA was completely divested from Wieland-Werke and established as a independent com-pany; 75% of the shares remain with Wieland, and a strong shareholder was found in Hydro Aluminium, who initially owned 25% of the shares. Three years later, WICONA was a 100% subsidiary of Hydro Alu-minium (a subsidiary company of Norsk Hydro) and renamed WICONA Bausysteme GmbH.

The construction of the Technical and Certification Centre in Bellenberg in 1992 was another milestone in the company's history, as was the opening of the Service Centre with a large, fully automated ware-house in Gerstungen (1999).

In between, WICONA continued to pursue its path in European markets and beyond: firstly, with the expansion of sales in Scandinavia and Benelux. In 1994, licence agreements were concluded for the production of WICONA products in Israel, Saudi Arabia and Japan.

During this phase, other European countries were added to the existing foreign markets, with Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Portugal and Romania. By 2001, the Ulm-based aluminium systems company was represented in 19 countries on four continents.

From 2004 onwards, the company introduced a new corporate name, Hydro Building Systems GmbH; in parallel, WICONA was successfully established as a brand in additional countries such as United Arab Emirates and China.

In 2009, the company built its own Test Centre, which includes a façade testing facility, at the Bellen-berg location. At the same time, the company introduced its new brand slogan “Technik für Ideen”, which has since shaped the appearance of WICONA's communications worldwide.

In 2013, a joint venture between the Norwegian companies Hydro and Orkla led to the foundation of the Norwegian company Sapa AS and WICONA became the premium brand of the new Sapa Building Systems Group.

After the opening of a WICONA showroom at the Building Centre in London (2014) and Madrid (2016), a project like this also started in Germany in June 2017, together with additional partners in Frankfurt, which was opened under the name of NEXT. In autumn of the following year, Sapa AS was acquired by the company Hydro in Oslo; since then, WICONA has again become a brand of Hydro.