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Archives for posts with tag: Dutch design
What a gorgeous, grown-up looking place to go for a drink.
Rule: in life (and design), imitations are never better than the real thing. Though I suspect hi-res wallpaper ‘Scrapwood’ by Dutch designer Piet Hein Eek might just be an exception.
Looking like a Royal Doulton classic rose pattern complete with Japan black plate stand, Slovenian designer Nika Zupanc‘s 5 o’clock chair for Mooi was a talking point at Milan design week but is so much more than that.
Impeccable and perfect. This family home by Dutch architects Rocha Tombal attracted one comment in particular at Dezeen back in September that is truly food for thought. Essentially the writer loved the house but declared he could never be comfortable living there. The flawless architecture he said would make him feel like ‘a foreign body which destroys the perfectly arranged interiors’. But, he adds, he’d be very happy to live next door.
Just as I decided to post about Front‘s softly, softly twist on conventional furniture decoration for Porro, I stumbled across the work of their Dutch soul mates, Scholten and Baijings. The duo is presenting fuori salone in Milan, alongside a bevy of new Dutch talent at the Romeo Gigli Cafe’/Design Academy Eindhoven HQ in the Porta Genova precinct. Their exhibition, Truly Dutch, Conversation Pieces for the Interior, is a five-piece collection of ”contemporary, decorated pieces of furniture, designed by Scholten & Bangs and made by artists and master craftsmen.” The pieces were inspired by classic master works from the intriguingly divergent collection of the Zuiderzee Museum of art, design and culture. The tuna boat motif travel case for me kind of says it all about Dutch design at the moment. You may not quite get what’s really going on, but it makes you look.
Using ‘the most nothing building material they could find’, the creative types from Amsterdam communications agency Nothing have constructed their new office interior out of good, old, uncomplicated cardboard. Designer Joost van Blieswijk – a self-styled new generation artisan ‘more interested in designing chess sets than mobile phones’ – has used his trademark ‘no screw, no glue’ technique to fashion more than five hundred square metres of laser cut cardboard into a series of otherwise classically-styled partitions, workstations, meeting table and even bookshelves.
I find it is still a rare treat to find ‘furniture for children’ (at any budget) worthy of the imagination, perception and innate good taste of its intended end users. In other words, design for juniors that choses to charm rather than dazzle. Created in 2007 by Dutch designer Hella Jongerius, the Porcupine desk is one of those happy exceptions. The subtle, quirky little table comes out of the newly curated Vitra for Kids collection, itself a surprising, tightly edited range. And well worth a visit, as much for its upbeat mood as a spot to (re)discover some very useful and beautiful - and not just for kids – storage bits and pieces like the 1969 ‘Uten.Silo’ and the Eames’ ‘Hang it All’. Just the things to keep the discriminating child’s playroom productive and a little desk named Porcupine in very smart company.
In a converted monastery in Utrecht, a departure from the white bathroom solution works a treat. The candelabra is a reference to the building’s sacred heritage.
