Fuore
A company goes public in order to cause a furore, to establish itself as a brand and, above all, to measure up to the competition. Every year, it is disappointing yet again when, in the minds of visitors and journalists, other designers outdo you with their accomplishments. These past few years, we’ve presented a number of monumental works: the old lampshade lamps and a sort of giant chandelier two years ago and, last year, the oversized beam and pipe furniture. The tumultuous and uncertain p ... »
We go to Milan
Download PDFThe tile cabinetsAfter Jeanine and I created the first tile cabinets back in 1993, we created another series, of pillar cabinets. In the years that followed, our joint production efforts were limited to our three daughters, who, one by one, made it impossible for Jeanine to work professionally in any capacity. Right when the clay was made and the mixer was in the barrel ... »
Success comes when you least expect it
Today, it suddenly occurred to a number of people here that the Word Tables we’re creating for and with Marc Ruygrok may very well become a success story. I responded with scepticism and said that the chance of such a big success was very low since, after all, we never achieve immediate success with anything we sell. For a moment I thought, I shouldn’t write this down or Marc may feel insulted and start doubting the commercial viability of the tables - which, of course, is no different than d ... »
Team
I regularly try to express my tremendous appreciation of those individuals who work for me and my astonishment at all they manage to achieve. I work like a madman, but I’m not the only one, and the enormous accomplishments and inspiring results are achieved together with a fantastic team. I sometimes feel guilty since they’re all pretty much following my dreams but, since we work together so closely, it’s not always clear whose dreams these are exactly.Next month, we’ll be once again c ... »
What I really wanted to say
What I really wanted to say I recently made a lightning visit to Cape Town in South Africa in order to give a lecture. The plan was to spend a week there, but it ended up being only a day due to unforeseen circumstances. During the lecture, it became obvious that the audience had heard enough. So I decided to skip the part at the end, which I already had my doubts about. But I shouldn’t have done that, because I still have the idea that I haven’t really said my piece.The entire ... »
No crisis at Strijp-R
I was thinking recently about how little has changed since that Easter breakfast in 1993, when Jeanine sprayed her food over my drawing from laughing when I said I had plans to launch an advertising campaign. I was going to start an advertising campaign during a time when we were eating at her parent’s house almost daily due to a lack of money and time. I think I was earning negative one guilder an hour at the time. I came up with the idea because the home and living magazines, which were spr ... »
26 January 2012 lecture by Paul Smith - no more seats available
For some time now, we’ve been playing with the idea of setting up a series of lectures, in which creative entrepreneurs give talks. It’s rather a lion’s den situation, bearing in mind that the combination of business and creativity has free rein in our premises. Moreover, in these hectic times we’re living in, the theme seems more apt than ever before. The successful businesses nowadays are mostly run by creative people with an eye for, and sympathy with the arts, the way it always is in conf ... »
13 January 2012 Stable lamps for Marc Mulders
Almost immediately after Marc set up shop in his studio, he had the newly installed brand-new fluorescent lights removed. They were a continuous eyesore and simply could not be accepted just because they produced light, not to mention the fact that the colour of the lighting left much to be desired. It’s the same as with plastic window frames; they’re low maintenance but ugly from day one. Incidentally, I expect that, one day, a plastic window frame will be designed that looks like a plastic ... »
13 January 2012 Eyesore
Every time I walked into the showroom and the lamps were on, my eyes hurt. Without wasting a moment (and without a penny to spend), we took the energy-slurping halogen lights out of the old showroom and put them in the new one, which, incidentally, is not completely finished yet. But with the low number of lights, the new showroom being much larger than the old one, there are numerous areas that are insufficiently - but interestingly - illuminated. The result is economical, I’ll admit. But t ... »
13 January 2012 Wehkamp.us
Lying on the shelf on the right under my drawing table is a number of sketches for the next series of furniture I've designed for Wehkamp.nl. They’re now ready for finalising. Right before Christmas, the first batch of tables and chairs arrived that we presented during the DDW. The fact that I’ve designed a basic collection for Wehkamp has caused a few frowns. But the fact that the products have caused a bit of a stir is a positive thing. These tables and chairs are pure Dutch, solid and well ... »
1 January 2012 Psychologicalbusinessconductingduringcrisistimebonus
Or “Psychological bonus for continuing to conduct business during crisis times”Many within the company were quite displeased that I spoke freely about what I believed were disappointing visitor numbers for the gallery openings. Many outside the company interpreted my candour over the greatest challenges thus far along our journey as if the end were nigh. To me it was only logical that the new building, a megalomaniac project, would present challenges. In my mind, the anticipated proble ... »
Youp and De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig
On Wednesday evening I was in Haarlem, to watch the tryout of comedian Youp van‘t Hek’s New Year show, this time with the theatre set. Arriving in Haarlem was no easy task. Traffic jams, a wrong address and other hassles ruined any chance of me fulfilling my intention of discussing with the Hekwerk team what they thought I should pay attention to during the show. The show, which I was now watching for the third time, was as always slightly different, but more than anything it was much better, ... »
Christmas
It will be obvious to anyone who has visited our site from time to time, or who follows the new column, that rather a lot has changed in our lives this last year. This Christmas period really brought it home to me. Apart from being a designer, producer and distributor I (we) have also become an entrepreneur in the hospitality industry and a retailer. And with Christmas comes decorating. A year later, all those around me appear to have more time free, since I’m the one they put on the hot sea ... »
1 december Disappointment and windfall
Last Sunday was the opening of the Jan van der Ploeg exhibition. It may very well have be our best exhibition yet. More than 4,500 invitations were e-mailed, yet fewer than 50 people showed up. Luckily, we always have our family and friends to fall back on, but, still, the low turnout was a disappointment. We experienced a similar disappointment back in 2006, when we released our book. We thought that, if we put together a book and average around 500 unique visitors to our website ever ... »
Kröller-Müller chair
We just could not seem to get the ball rolling. The three chairs we made for the Kröller-Müller Museum booth had yet to have a sequel. We were often asked if we weren’t going to put the chairs, made of scrap wood like the scrap hut, into production. The shape and construction of the chairs are limited considerably by the material, and they look like something out of a comic strip. Some even think that this crazy chair is my best chair design yet. I sometimes put aside unusual colours or types ... »
presentation Judd / van der Ploeg
For many, the work of Donald Judd needs no further explanation, but the fact that we have five of his furniture pieces at our disposal and, starting today, the possibility to offer them for sale, is something I consider very special. No less special was the wall painting by Jan van der Ploeg recently showcased in the gallery for all to see. But wall paintings do not last forever and it was with pain in our hearts that we had to put behind us, and cover with a layer of latex paint, this unique ... »
Wehkamp.nl
It has been a while now since Wehkamp.nl approached me to discuss the possibility of designing a basic collection for them. The foremost reason for this was the baskets and vases I had designed for Fair Trade Original that were for sale in their online shop at the time. At Wehkamp.nl they talk about their online shop as if it were a real mortar and brick shop. The idea is for visitors to get this same feeling, to experience it as a fictitious world where you can order real products. This is t ... »
September 16th 2011 DDW One year down the line
DDW NewsOnce again, things have not gone as planned and turned out differently than expected, but there’s never been so much to see and do as during this tenth edition of Dutch Design Week, at the very least the fantastic exhibition by Atelier van Lieshout being held in our gallery. The exhibit does not feature furniture or applied art, but actual drawings and statues, offering some counterbalance to all the design projects. Joep will even being giving a lecture on Sat ... »
Exposition Atelier van Lieshout
John Kormeling asked if we would furnish one of the rooms at the World Expo in Shanghai. The theme of the room was "Green", since almost everything in it was to be recycled. The walls were green, the table and chairs made from typical Dutch green scrap wood, Jeanine’s recycled dishware was glazed green especially for the expo, the lamps over the table were made of old green tie fabric, and a variation on the ‘birch bark’ cabinet was on display. Now that the expo has ended, the green room has ret ... »
Saturday 3 Sept. to Sunday 11 Sept. Huttenfestival De Vlek
A ‘hut’ festival, a crazy idea from Studio Boot & Co. gone astray, is being organised in the railway zone of Tilburg. When the plan still appeared to be completely impossible, it seemed safe enough to cautiously agree to participate. As they say, in for a penny, in for a pound…. The hut festival is now a reality and we need to get cracking with our rather ‘unique’ budget. We are creating a restaurant for 70 persons and also need to take care of a number of other practical matters. Since every ... »
19 Augustus 2011 Van Abbemuseum
Van Abbe MuseumOur collaboration with the Van Abbe is now starting to take shape in all kinds of ways. We have a glass case on display in our gallery, containing works from the Van Abbe collection, we are giving joint lectures, attempting to coordinate and initiate exhibitions and activities and, at present, are hard at work in the Van Abbe tower making our own tower - a ‘tower block’ tens of metres high created for displaying the art of various collectors brought together for the ‘Col ... »
August 18 th 2011 DDW One year down the line
When the DDW starts on 22 October 2011, it will be exactly one year ago to the day that we opened our doors to the public for the first time. It feels like yesterday…. The visitors were walking around here as if they had never done anything else but walk across floors whose formwork had just been removed, past walls that were still wet with paint, and through doors that had been hung only one day earlier. There was even heating here and there and, in the restaurant, the first flame was lit o ... »
August 11 th 2011 Children hammer away at scrap hut during Parade
For some time now, I’ve wanted to place a flatbed trailer next to the restaurant, where kids could hammer away on a hut using scrap materials from our workshop. I think it’s a typical Brabant phenomenon to use a flatbed trailer to parade around town after winning a match or to create floats for the carnival parade. The only problem is that the only way to make sure it ends up being a hut is to continuously help out. To resolve this problem, I thought we could put together a frame using old bo ... »
11 through 14 August 2011 The Parade of the Idea
We have been working together with De Parade travelling theatre festival for some time now. We’ve provided an enormous tent, bars, tables, scissor lift beer tables, lookout posts, drawings, enormous tables and more. So now that we've got the space, it seems only fitting to turn the request around for a change and invite De Parade to pay us a visit. And, as with so many other recent ideas we’ve had in passing, everyone turned out to be quite enthusiastic about it and, although a number of hurd ... »
Plenty to see starting 8 July
For those who were not able to attend the Saloni in Milan or Design Miami in Basel, we are displaying the pieces we exhibited there at our own complex. As usual, we had unfortunately set the bar a bit too high for these important events; the result was that certain pieces were not finished in time for the shows. There will even be pieces on display which will be ‘hot off the press’; at least this will be the case if something doesn’t go wrong at the last minute. Hans Lensvelt has taken ... »
June 18 th 2011 Art Basel
The stands are incredibly expensive at the Basel art show and, since customers are looking for extreme exclusivity, the products also need to be expensive. Using a different colour or leg and then calling it a limited edition makes it possible to ask the ‘mandatory’ higher price. It’s quite an odd system really; the high prices for the stands, the need for exclusivity and the corresponding high prices for the products together creates a sort of false exclusivity that people seem to enjoy and ... »
Design Miami / Basel June 14 -18 th
download PDF ... »
June 6th 2011 Victory
We finally won another award. The first time I won an award was for the scrap wood cabinets back in 1990. Since then, I've created all kinds of different designs in a wide range of materials, but recognition in the form of an award persisted to allude me. It took fake scrap wood to rake in another one. This time it did not take place in Utrecht, but in New York, the centre of the world. So we have progressed somewhat apparently. Normally, I would not be shouting something like this from the r ... »
May 16th 2011 No news from Mavaleix
The world is topsy-turvy to begin with, but especially so in our case. As the financial crisis continues, passivity reigns. “After all, you have to trim the fat.” But not us. We embarked on the biggest project of our lives, right in the middle of the crisis. We bought, renovated and moved into an enormous building. If you succeed, you can always blame it on a different law of economics, namely, that you need to think and act in an anti-cyclical fashion. It is precisely in times like these tha ... »
April 25th 2011 The world of Tom Claassen
This exhibition was no easy task to organise. We finally managed to determine a date for the opening - 1 May - and select the work to be displayed, only to discover that the wooden men had been sold. Should we make our own then? But how many? Tom’s response: 2 trams. Communicating with Tom Claassen is as interesting as his work. It’s like some ... »
April 20th 2011 Presentation Rossana Orlandi Milaan
Click here to download the PDF file of all the presented products ... »
February 14th 2011 The Roof
When things get extremely busy, there is always lots of 'news' to share, but no time to write about it. But what would have been considered news a little while back is far less interesting so long after the fact. Building-related developments have kept us incredibly busy. As an indirect result, I was asked by Hans Woerlee, owner of PFC2 (developer), to help come up with a project for the timber ports in Amsterdam. It is an enormous project, with tens of thousands of square metres earmarked fo ... »
February 16th 2011 Alliantie Geusebroek
A successful failure.We've carried out a number of major projects for Peter Geusebroek (architect) and Alliantie (developer). For each of these projects, we produced the doors or entire vestibules for the buildings. This particular project was commissioned at a very early stage, while the old building scheduled for demolition to make room for the new one was still standing. We originally planned to remove old elements from the old building and use them in the new one. The plan was to p ... »
February 15th 2011 First concert by Storioni Trio
On Sunday the 20th of February, the Storioni Trio will be performing amidst Guido Geelen’s New Sculptures. We are launching our concert series with a ‘too good’ trio playing among ‘too good’ art. What makes this 'too good' for us is that we would never have had the possibility to bring together these musicians and artists had it not been for our collaborations with Stephan Brekelmans and Menno Doornbos. It is a true privilege to offer an accommodation for so much quality and have the opportun ... »
January 24th 2011 Opening Gallery
The opening of our first exhibitions took place last Sunday. The work of Guido Geelen – deafening in its beauty – was on display on the top floor of the mixing building and, one floor below, the “The Prologue” exhibition, designed to provide a foretaste of what is to come. The only problem now is how to match these next time… Luckily, we have three months to work on this and to give the public time to view the current exhibitions. Charles Esche opened the exhibitions, thereby, once aga ... »
January 20th 2011 First exhibition of Art
Guido Geelen/ New sculpturesGuido Geelen was the first to get the ball rolling. His exhibition of butterfly sculptures has taken over the top floor of what was once the mixing building. Where the raw materials for Philips’ ceramics factory were once stored and pumped downwards, ceramic sculptures now stand - sculptures of dissected and perforated human figures supported by brass display cases or by butterflies mounted on pins sticking out from the miniscule holes. It has been some time ... »
November 20th 2010 Oogenlust
Oogenlust (Marcel van Dijk)Marcel from Oogenlust visited us this week. He joined us on our adventure with the building and, since its opening, he has always ensured that it contains the most spectacular displays of greenery. We thought it was about time we exchanged ideas about how it was all going. I told him that, slowly but surely, more people were coming in and he told me that he had visited a couple of times (in secret) and that sometimes there was no trace of any customers. Now I ... »
November 22th 2010 Korst van der Hoeff
Antique is out.I visited the Korst van der Hoeff auction house in Den Bosch for the first time recently to buy Delftware and pottery for the shop. It was a quite an experience, sitting in an old-fashioned auction room with a number in hand. The atmosphere was very exciting yet informal. After only two auctions, we had what we came for: a considerable amount of Delftware, pottery and by-catch. What we were surprised to find is that antique is not in. The most beautiful pieces were left u ... »
November 20th 2010 Tom Dixon
We represent Tom Dixon and he represents us. During 100% Design, Tom opened his doors in Portobello Dock, an old waste processing factory in London that housed the Virgin studios for quite some time. One month later, we opened our doors in an old ceramics factory where Philips produced ceramic parts. But this is not the only similarity between us. He uses his name as a brand name (although this was decided many years ago) and, like me, his designs are based on materials and technique. I do that ... »
November 18th 2010 Opening!!
Now, we’ve become accustomed to quite a bit, but this was truly exciting and quite impossible until the very last moment. Opening our building to the public during Design Week was a decision that could not be undone. In the end, we ended up showing the public section only. All other sections of the building looked like a war zone. And a war zone they were, considering th ... »
November 16th 2010 The Restaurant
The opening of the restaurant on the first day of Design Week was nothing short of a small miracle, although it felt like a huge one. During the first days after the initial storm of visitors, it became less and less crowded around five o'clock. But after around three days, the restaurant had ... »
November 15th 2010 The Shop
We have a shop and a shop needs merchandise. It’s actually quite difficult to put together a shop collection, especially if you prefer to fill it with things you are personally enthusiastic about. But the result isn’t bad. You just need to do things differently than normal. To start, we decided that a ... »
November 13th 2010 The building
Opening of Building When I walked through the building the first time, I could not see a thing. It was dark, the windows were painted shut with peeling paint, and the walls and ceiling system appeared to have been randomly placed and installed. But the contours of the building became clear within a few minutes: there was a large workshop in the heart of the building, surrounded by a showroom on the first floor. The building of our dreams. Wherever you stand, you can see wh ... »
November 7th 2010 Opening of the exhibition by Menno Doornbos
Opening of Exhibition Space / Menno DoornbosFortunately we realised that it would be pointless to launch an actual exhibition during the opening of the building. We had originally planned to start in December with the first ‘real’ exhibition, but ended up postponing it. The new target date is January, which gives us more time to fully prepare the space. Guido Geelen will break the ice ... »
Sprookjes NV by Leo Coolen
Sprookjes nv by Leo CoolenWe had made good agreements with Leo. We planned to furnish the space in a rather serene, almost museum-like, manner so that his craving for massive insanity in enormous display cases would have plenty of space. But it turned out to be a miserable failure. The lorries and busses kept coming and going and the space was filled with the most unusual objects and things. It ... »
October 14th 2010 Ruined by Job
Job and I know each other from our first location on Sluisstraat. Sarah, the dog that came with the rent we never paid, either absolutely detested Job or Job was afraid of the dog. At any rate, it was quite an achievement to get to work every morning in one piece. We worked ourselves to death in the workshop while Job and Hugo sat in their office. We never really managed to make it work. ... »
October 6th 2010 Hotel academy Maastricht
Along with a number of other designers, I was asked to furnish four rooms for the Maastricht Hotel Management School. Being a school, the project should or could be experimental in nature for students and guests, who were to serve as guinea pigs. ... »
October 1th 2010 Opening new premises
More and more people are asking us how things are going. This is because we are working on a project that is virtually impossible, but which we are certain will be a success. The question is only how much will be ready by 23 October, the opening day of Dutch Design Week. Will the showroom and shop be completely furnished? Will we have our offices up and running? ... »
Puzzling
Simplicity is a virtue and often results in beautiful, uncomplicated products that are often affordable to boot. Simplicity was a necessity, however, when I was developing the presentat ... »
Glassblowing
Since we’re working ... »
World Fair
John Kormeling asked if we could design a space for the World Fair. The theme of the room was to be ‘green’, since practically everything in it has been recycled. The walls are green and there is a tree growing inside it. There are also a table and chairs made o ... »
Hans Liberg and Thomas Mayer
When I received an e-mail from Hans Liberg asking whether his regular photographer, Thomas Mayer, could approach me about posting pictures of our little house and furniture on Hans’ site, w ... »
Missing
As odd as it might sound, we’ve been missing two large items for ... »
PDF Salone 2010
Click here to download the PDF ... »
Myung il Song opened Song in Vienna`s first district with Piet Hein Eek
As part of the shop's expanding involvement with unusual and outstanding furniture productions, Song is pleased to present furniture pieces designed and produced by Dutch designer Piet Hein Eek.In 1998, Myung il Song opened Song in Vienna's first district. Originally a small space focused on the ... »
A last-minute newsletter (quick run-down)
Soon we will ... »
Designweek Japan 2009
In consideration of the financial crisis and the fact that Cibone, the shop that sells our products in Tokyo, had once again invested in a large-scale presentation, I felt it would only be appropriate to attend the presentation. One of the reasons not to attend a presentation like this is that it usually coincides with a major event elsewhere, in whichnot only your own work, but that of all other designers in the world is on display. The journalists, who naturall ... »
New products - Product development:
We have now reached the end of a period during which appreciation of design and designers was largely determined by appreciation of ideas, something you would think would be one of the core tasks of a designer. In the media, at educational institutions, everywhere it seems, all that mattered was the ‘idea’. As a result, quite a few interesting ideas appeared on the market for a rather long period of time that, for some reason or other, were unjustified and, at any rate, contr ... »
Fair Trade Original Presentation:
As announced earlier, I have designed a number of products for the new Fair Trade Original collection (FTO, 08/06/09 newsletter). Afterwards, I was asked to attend the presentation of the new collection. I was willing to help out, but preferred to hold the presentation at our location so I would not have to travel any more than necessary. Besides, the presentation practically coincided with our own collection presentation and the showroom needed to be tidied up anyway.Af ... »
Trip Vietnam for Fair Trade Originals
Vietnam Trip for Fair Trade Originals On arriving in Ho Chi Minh (formerly Saigon), we were met by My, who supervises a large part of the production for FTO in Vietnam and took fantastic care of Sophie and me for 10 days. Sophie is an FTO designer and supervised the entire process. My not only interpreted every word we uttered, but was primarily in charge of showing us around the production facilities. We were sometimes pleasantly surprised at the care with which everything was co ... »
Arrète, arrète, arrète
That’s French for a building freeze. This isn’t the first time this has happened but, after a visit from a provincial official, the mayor was entirely convinced that all construction had to stop. Apparently the road leading to the mill is too long and in poor condition. As a result, the fire brigade cannot easily reach the valley, thereby posing a possible safety hazard. Before leaving, the provincial official also found a large number of other issues he felt were problematic. All the same, i ... »
Presentation in our own place
This year, we wanted to receive back the products shown in Milan as quickly as possible so we could display them in our showroom. But, once again, this did not happen. Some items were sold and the others were displayed elsewhere. But by now most of the products have been returned or remade. The entire showroom has been turned upside-down and the presentation of not only the newest products, but also the existing collection, is better than ever before. Hopefully this will be the last time we ... »
Tree-trunk garden house
It sometimes happens that you are asked to produce something you have actually wanted to do for some time. A customer called and asked if we could build a log shack in his field, one that would be large enough to sit and write inside. I loved the idea from the start. Oddly enough, we’ve recently received quite a few questions about the log shack we produced years ago. That shack has been added to the collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. And now we’ve constructed one as a stack of ... »
Table for Oerol
A 130-metre long table that can be used as a catwalk, stage and dinner table all in one. We were approached by Terts Brinkhof, Director of the “de Parade” travelling theatre festival, with the question of whether we could construct such a structure. The challenge excited us, but the deadline was less than ideal. The goal was to create a smaller, 24-metre long version, for the Oerol Festival and to have the larger version sent to Governors Island in New York, to serve as the nucleus of the “Ne ... »
Saloni del Mobile 2009 Milano
What are we showing in Milan? ... »
December 2008: Dordogne, new premises, product development
This edition of our newsletter contains varied contents. A number of topics are reviewed and the first announcement is made on our efforts to find new premises from which we can continue our growth and achieve new goals. ... »
Graduation design academy october 2008
Graduation Design academy october 2008 ... »
"Bakkerswinkel" shops october 2008
For a little while, we were receiving fewer incoming orders for the Bakkerswinkel shops. The name has (almost) become a household word and there are already large numbers of franchise operations, so we needed to come up with a plan. We had not yet finished reflecting on this before we started receiving one order after the other from the various co-owners. An organic supermarket has opened on Warmoesstraat (decorated by a colleague) that offers ... »
Holiday homes in France september 2008
September 2008 In my last update on the holiday homes, I announced somewhat recklessly that they were to be finished by last summer. Apparently that was not the case. The roof of the windmill is currently under construction and the final touches to the outbuildi ... »
The outdoor armchair enormous in scrapwood august 2008
The outsource of products from our collection has been a disaster till now. Even metal products made by ... »
Newsletter April 2008
Doors for Bod’or ... »
Piet Hein Eek
During the past few months, I have been on an extensive tour in Europe and Japan, presenting the book and our products. The trip included Amsterdam, London, Hamburg and Tokyo. I also managed to fit in a holiday visit to the Dordogne as well, to check up on and enjoy the progress that has been made on the house project. All quite hectic really, particularly as travelling has never been my favourite pastime. The Woonbeurs has always been our preferred venue for launching new products as ... »