Yearbook Dutch Design Milan 2012 40 Years of At Home Dutch Design with Joep in Milan Ann Maes van Lieshout Didn’t Miss a Single Salone and Six More p6 in 40 Years p14 Designers Sjarel Ex 176 Dutch Explains Designers p28 The Lack in Milan Track Them Down: of a Design with Detailed Maps, Museum in The a Restaurant Guide Netherlands p37 and a Cocktail Schedule Connecting the Dots showcases all Dutch #4 April 2012 Milan presentations at the Milan Design Week 2012 Heineken® invited 19 design talents from 4 continents to ‘envision a concept - nightclub’. The club pops up at the Milan Design Week 2012. You’re welcome. Open daily 13.00-23.00* hours from April 17th until april 20th 2012. * Invitee only between 17.00 and 23.00 hours on the th17 and 18th of April. Via Privata Gaspare Bugatti 3 Zona Tortona, Milan HE12017 Connecting the dots 230x297mm.indd 1 02-03-12 11:45 4480 DDW] Adv. CTD 230x297_HR_Opmaak 1 29-02-12 10:30 Pagina 1 DutchDesignWeek Eindhoven 20-28 Oct 2012 MAIN SPONSOR: SPONSOR: MADE POSSIBLE BY: MEDIAPARTNERS: PRODUCED BY: Concept_Volle-Kracht / Photography_Lisa Klappe / People in this portrait_ Joep Verhoeven, Erik Sjouerman, Piet Hein Eek, Max Bruinsma, Marcel Sloots, Eric de Haas, Nacho Carbonell, Marc Maurer, Josef Blersch, Hans Robertus, Mander Liefting, Freek Lomme, Maarten Baptist, Floris Hovers, Olav Slingerland Inside Design Amsterdam: ELLE Decoration’s leading design event WWW.INSIDEDESIGN.NL + ARE YOU ELLE DECORAtion’s next DESIGN TALENT? sign up for this year’s DESIGN TALENT AWARD BY CAPPELLINI ENTRY: FROM MAY 1 TILL JUNE 15 Save the date! September 21-23 2012 Inside Design Amsterdam is an event by ELLE Decoration. The winner of the ELLE Decoration Design Talent Award by Cappellini will be announced during the event. For updates, visit www.insidedesign.nl and follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/insidedesignamsterdam ED170-advertentieCTD.indd 1 2/29/12 1:55 PM Colophon Foreword Contents Design is Everything and Furniture Connecting the Dots For a long time by now a furniture fair knowledge with a unique experience of Foreword Column Yearbook Dutch Design Milan 2012 has not been about selling furniture, changing trends and the changing fair Representing all Dutch presentations any more than design has been about itself, especially in the last twenty Design is Everything Nostalgic during the Milan Design Week 17 - 22 developing products alone. The Milan years. Maes still remembers the salone April 2012 Design Week in particular has develo- clearly from the time when it did not and Furniture Avant-garde Connecting the Dots magazine publishes ped over the last few years to become contain a single Dutch presentation but Dutch designers and design-culture a bustling meeting place for politics, was a purely Italian event. She is in a by David Heldt by Kees de Haan internationally during key design events economy, ecology, city marketing and position to know how much the intro- p4 — p24 — and fairs. even nation branding, including Dutch duction of Dutch Design and other Connecting the Dots magazine Design. And design is like a new trends has changed the Milan Design Koningsstraat 43c buzzword that covers new entrepre- Week. Maes, who is herself an indus- Interview Article 1011ET Amsterdam neurship, linking diverse sectors, and trial designer, takes a critical view of the The Netherlands putting people first. Our future needs developments, particularly of the Dutch From Trade The Museum www.thedots.nl / [email protected] engineers who are enterprising, know presentations; beside an enormous +31 (0)208932886 how to link complex issues, and put wealth of ideas, she also perceives a Partner Lives Editor in Chief people at the centre – in other words, spiritual impoverishment. Read the David Heldt designers. While most studies and unique survey and interview with her to Idea by Annemiek van Grondel [email protected] professions are aimed at specialisation, on page 6. p28 — designers have to be able to make Contributing editors Generator Cécile Dornseiffen, Monique van Empel, connections across a very broad front. The economic malaise in the furniture Annemiek van Grondel, Maarten Veeger, branch has, surprisingly enough, not Interview with Ann Maes Article Kees de Haan, Francine Mendelaar, If you want to know how these new led to a drop in the number of desig- by Cécile Dornseiffen Daniela De Lorenzo (intern) designers can make a whole region ners and companies at the Milan fair. p6 — Connecting the Dots prosper, turn to page 16. The city of There are more Dutch presentations Translator Studio Mason & Egmond Eindhoven has known for years that than ever. All the same, the time of with the Materiaalfonds designers have talents that can give a lavish spending is over. I pick up signals Article Graphic design new impulse to the economy. During during my stay in Milan, there has been by Francine Mendelaar Koehorst in ‘t Veld the 2008 Milan Design Week Tutto- hard bargaining about the price of Capital D: p33 — www.koehorstintveld.nl bene was already giving a guided tour exhibition spaces, and compromises Contributing photographers to a delegation of local government have been reached. And that is not Dutch Design Boudewijn Bollmann: twistedstreets.nl civil servants who wanted to know something that the Milanese like to do. Guide (photo reportage), Ilco Kemmere: everything about design and sustaina- Let us be thankful to Milan this year that in Bussiness ilcokemmere.nl, Eline Witteveen bility in detail. And it was probably not we can present our designers, the Find Dutch Designers their first visit there. Eindhoven, with its catalysts of the Dutch economy, to the by Monique van Empel Printed by Habo DaCosta world-famous Design Academy, world here, and at a sharply reduced p16 — in FuoriSalone, Zona University of Technology and important price. Communication & Press high tech industry, has also been Tortona, Fiera and Luc Deleau organising the Dutch Design Week for A week is not enough to see everything. Column [email protected] eleven years. The driving force behind Connecting the Dots helps you to make Zona Lambrate +31 (0)652472990 this event is Capital D, an organisation a selection and to plan your week well. Not with Furniture Advertising that deploys design to stimulate the I take the liberty of making three recom- p36 — Luc Deleau & David Heldt economy in the Eindhoven region. And mendations: don’t skip unfamiliar by Maarten Veeger +31 (0)208932886 with success. names on your tour, see which traditio- p20 — nal brands are working with young Financially supported by The Netherlands Architecture Fund This edition of Connecting the Dots also designers, and enjoy! includes a survey of the developments in Dutch Design in Milan during the past David Heldt forty years by Ann Maes. She has not Editor in Chief © Connecting the Dots 2012 All rights reserved. Copyrights on the photographs, missed a single (fuori) salone in all those illustrations, drawings, and written material in this publication are owned by the respective years. She is an incredible source of photographer(s), the designer(s) and the author(s). No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without permission of the publisher and designers, photographers and authors involved. 4 5 She has not missed a Salone in Milan in forty years. Present at the most eye-catching shows, exhibitions, receptions and parties. First as a student, since 1977 as a freelance designer, and since 1980 as correspondent for various magazines, including Abitare. But now primarily as promoter, curator and design manager. If anyone has seen Dutch Design expand to become a world-famous export product, it is Ann Maes. But she considers that this reputation has also taken its toll. ‘For decades I have been opposing overproduction, useless products, and the waste of energy and materials.’ Interview: Cécile Dornseiffen 40 years of Dutch Design in Milan From Trade Partner to Idea Generator — Ann Maes in her archives. Photo: Eline Witteveen 6 7 She first passed through the When did the Dutch furniture Exhibiting in the city centre turnstiles of the Milan furniture manufacturers take the leap to suddenly became more Legendary Parties fair in 1971, on holiday in Italy with Milan? important than a trade fair ‘The 1980s were extravagant. a friend. ‘I wanted to see the presentation. What brought The Italians in particular spared phenomenon Salone del Mobile ‘Looking back, I think that it wasn’t about this change? no expense when it came to with my own eyes and was immedi- until the 1980s that they were branding. ately hooked. Since then I haven’t prepared to risk further interna- ‘The big Italian firms always used I can still vividly recall unforget- table moments. Paola Navone missed a single edition, not even as tionalisation, besides the commer- their Milan showroom to receive was in charge of the Driade a mother of a three-week-old baby. cial Möbelmesse in Cologne. But it VIPs. The limited space available at cultural parties, Poltrona Frau My colleagues couldn’t understand was still a small and select group for the fair made those shows in the brought in opera singers for the it. But Milan, that’s something.’ a long time: Artifort, Castelijn, city more and more important. In Sunday breakfast. Sisal Italia Montis, Rohé and Pastoe. And they 1987 Giulio Cappellini caused a stir concluded a dinner with a 2 x 2 metre cake in a purple and pink Who were the earliest Dutch were not yet in the spotlights, with in the Museo di Milano with a design by Ettore Sottsass. pioneers? visits from the occasional scout.