Christian Hrabalek
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christian Hrabalek (1977- ) (commonly known as Chris Hrabalek or Hrabi) is an Austrian automotive designer and automotive strategy consultant and currently the director of Fenomenon Ltd.
Hrabalek was born in Vienna, Austria and obtained three university degrees in International Business (European Business School of London), Marketing (Kingston University) and Vehicle Design (Royal College of Art, London). He began his career at Porsche in 1997 were he worked for the Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Mr. Hans Riedl, before moving on to Audi in 1998, Volkswagen in 1999, Lancia in 2000, Design Center Europe- Volkswagen Group from 2001 to 2002, BMW in 2003 and Škoda in 2004.
It was at Design Center Europe that Hrabalek met, and worked alongside, contemporary vehicle design masters such as: Benoit Jacob, Boris Jacob, Daniel Simon and Anders Warming.
In 2002 Hrabalek founded Fenomenon Holistic Design, a London based design consultancy working for multinational clients within the automotive industry. Fenomenon Ltd. presented the NewStratos, a concept car based on the Lancia Stratos, at the Geneva International Motorshow 2005 and the IAA Frankfurt International Motorshow 2005. The client list of Fenomenon includes companies such as: Bugatti, Lada, TVR, Visteon and Volkswagen.
In 2007 Hrabalek has been appointed as the official design consultant for Auto Italia- the world's leading Italian car magazine. His work is featured in a monthly one-page design column that focuses on present- and future trends in car design.