Showcasing all Dutch presentations at the Milan Design Week 2010

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THE DOTS150 Dutch designers in Milandetailed maps and cocktail guide Gijs Bakker A Career in Chapters p12

Alessandra Salici Celebrates 10 years of ZonaTortona p44

Richard Hutten Thinks Inside the Box p49

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Published by Tuttobene, commissioned by Agency NL, Ministry of Economic Affairs

Rados online design initiative radostar.com

From 1957 Rados founder Dr. Paul Lthi pioneered new markets like China and India. Since then, Rado has followed this pioneering spirit and built up a worldwide unique brand. Today, people all over the globe associate the name Rado with watches of iconic design and innovative materials.Rado is famous for its search for and use of new materials such as high-tech ceramics and sapphire crystal, making those innovations a standard in the watchmaking industry. The challenges in using innovative materials were met with pure, timeless and simply iconic designs, always with wearing comfort and functionality in mind. Being a future-oriented design brand, Rado commits itself to supporting young design talents of tomorrow. Their latest initiative is the online design community platform radostar.com.

Radostar.comIn April 2009, Rado introduced the online design community platform Radostar.com during the Salone del

Mobile in Milano.This new digital platform has been conceptualized and produced purely with young creatives and international design students in mind. This community is renowned for being both inspirational and aspirational and radostar.com aims to be their modern online destina-tion. One of the key features of radostar.com is the ability to give its commu-nity exposure as well as recognition by allowing them to publish and share their work, not only to peers but also to potential employers. The group element of the site allows creatives of all design disciplines to discuss ideas, interact and share thoughts.

In addition to this, well know names from the world of art and design will be featured as guest editors.

Among radostar.com, Rado partners interna-tional design festivals and all over the world, such as 100% Design Shanghai, Dutch Design Award Eindhoven, Lodz Design Festival Poland, Elle Deco Design Award UK or the Vienna Design Week.

5R5.5 by Jasper MorrisonFor information; www.info.rado.nlHoofdsponsor Dutch Design Awardsw

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Maria van der Hoeven Minister of Economic Affairs of The Netherlands

Diversity Connects the Dutch

What is it that connects designers who have set up their company within the borders of the Netherlands? Is there a Dutch-designers-Higgs particle? And if we knew what that was, would we know what makes Dutch designers so diverse?

300 km from Milan, in Geneva, research is being conducted on the smallest parti-cle of our universe: the so-called Higgs particle. Scientists believe that everything may be made up of these particles; we ourselves, the earth, and our furniture. It is an all-connecting element. I was re-minded of this, when thinking about the nature of the common factor of successful Dutch designers. There may not be a particle accelerator that can uncover this Dutch-designer-Higgs particle, but the magazine Connecting the Dots makes a good attempt.

The landscape of Dutch design has changed a great deal of late. One exam-ple: the founders of Droog Design, Gijs Bakker and Renny Ramakers, have end-ed their successful collaboration after 15 years. In the interview on page 12 Gijs Bakker says: Every generation has the right to express itself and to design their own products or environment. Can we conclude from this that a new movement is forming in the design landscape?

How this new generation will distinguish themselves, remains to be seen from their work. In any event, the importance of development and renewal is apparent. As Minister of Economic Affairs, I believe value only truly increases when these renewed designs are taken into produc-tion. That is what I call the value of crea-tion. The design process brings together disciplines and qualities in which the Netherlands excels. That is why Milan Design Week means so much for Dutch designers, especially now that we are looking for solutions to current the eco-nomic and ecological issues.

For a small country like ours, the diversity in Dutch design is immense. In this maga-zine you will see this diversity with your own eyes. Even better is to see it live in Milan, and to experience it.

I wish each company and every individu-al designer the greatest success in the sale of their creations, in making contacts, and in contributing to the diversity of Dutch design.

forewordColophon

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Connecting the DotsA magazine representing all Dutch presentations during the Milan Design Week 14-19 April 2010

The magazine Connecting the Dots is published by TuttobeneA one-time issue with the ambition to continueTuttobene, Damrak 70 - studio 5.63, 1012 LM, Amsterdam, The Netherlandswww.thedots.nlconnecting@thedots.nl+31 (0)208932886

Editor in Chief David Heldt david@thedots.nl +31 (0)615510727

Translator/Copyeditor Caitlan Kennedy www.bureaukennedy.com

Graphic design Koehorst in t Veld www.koehorstintveld.nl

Photo-editor reportage Victor le Noble

Contributing photographers Roos Kroes, Ilco Kemmere, Simone Desiato, Valentina Zanobelli, Raoul Kramer

Printed by VNV Mediaprinting www.vnvmediaprinting.com

Communication & PressBureau Deleau Luc Deleau luc@thedots.nl +31(0)652472990

Advertising Victor le Noble

Commissioned byAgency NL, Ministry of Economic Affairs

Supporting partnersBNO - Association of Dutch DesignersDesignPartners (Milan)

Tuttobene 2010All rights reserved. Copyrights on the photographs, illustrations, drawings, and written material in this publication are owned by the respective photographer(s), the designer(s) and the author(s). No part of this publica-tion may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without permission of the publisher and designers, photogra-phers and authors involved.

Minister Van der hoeven Ministerie van economische Zaken

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Maps Schedules Presentations Articles & Columns

ConTenTS ConTenTS

Forewordby Maria van der Hoeven

p7

A Career in Chapters

Interview with

Gijs Bakkerby Annemiek van Grondel

p12

Column

Sheila Ruizp20

Foreign Designers who call Holland Home

by Jeanne Tan

p22

Column

Rory Doddp30

Sustainable Design in The Netherlands

by O2 Nederland

p32

Going Greenby Eva Olde Monnikhof

p37

The Age of Maturity

Interview with

Alessandra Saliciby Maria Serra

p44

Column

Victor le Noblep50

Holland as a Design System

by Erik Hesseling

p52

Column

Miss Salone Socialitep58

Colophon p6

MapFuori Salone

inside front cover

MapZona Tortona

p1

MapZona Lambrate

p112

MapUnderground

inside back cover

Schedule Wednesday

p60

Schedule Thursday

p61

Schedule Fridayp62

Schedule Saturday

p63

Schedule Sunday

p64

Schedule Monday

p65

Index listDutch Presentations

p66

PresentationsZona Tortona

p68-82

PresentationsZona Lambrate

p82 - 95

PresentationsFuori Salonep95 - 103

PresentationsFiera

p104 - 108

Bo Reudler p18

Frederike Topp19

Jo Meestersp28

Kiki van Eijk and Joost van Bleiswijk

p29

Onno Schelling andMarjolijn Borsboom

p40

Pieke Bergmansp41

rENsp48

Richard Huttenp49

Floris Schoonderbeek and Dick van Hoff

p56

Niels van Eijk and Mirjam van der Lubbe

p57

Photo Documentary Designers at Work by Roos Kroes

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100% design 2010 - Tuttobene (286 x 216) + 3mm bleed.indd 1 17-2-2010 14:48:41

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Gijs Bakker FS08

Text Annemiek van Grondel Photography Ilco Kemmere

He could be called one of the godfathers of Dutch Design and certainly the one who put Dutch Design on the map. Gijs Bakker (1942), co-founder of Droog Design, is level-headed about it all. Last year he left the ever-successful design platform after 15 years. Time for a new creative chapter. Starting out in the middle of a financial crisis is fantastic

A Career inChapters

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Vienna, 1980. My wife, my son, and I were visiting a jewellery symposium there. There were posters in all the trams with the slogan: Design is unsichtbar. They were referring to an exposition in Linz. We visited it on the way back. An enormous white tent on the bank of the Donau, crammed with design in the broadest sense of the word; post-modern architecture, car design, performance art, fashion, visual arts One section with design pieces by Ettore Sottsass. Carpet made up of classic parquet flooring, finished with a chrome-plated steel border and placed under insipid formica chairs in the

most varied patterns. A lamp with a myriad of bulbs. A bookcase from the Memphis collection that would later become an icon The audac-ity! Fantastic! That kind of shock stays with you forever. He sighs. The exhibition meant a turning point for Gijs Bakker, conceptual artist and designer, and a cautious prelude to Droog Design, the design platform he would later start with Renny Ramakers. Droog Design is everything the cutting edge of that time, Italian design by Studio Alchimia and Memphis Group, wasnt: a return to the idea, the concept, averse from unnecessary decoration and exaggeration, but with an emphasis on originality and reclamation, all with a touch of irony. It was a new style that set off a shock wave in 1993 at the Salone in Milan, similar to the one Memphis caused at this Forum Design exhibition in Linz.

IntuitionBakker is characterized by a curious mixture of level-headedness and absent-mindedness. These elements come back again and again, both in his personality and in his work. He approaches life with an almost childlike curiosity, despite his vast experience and all but encyclopae-dic knowledge of art and design. His home-cum-studio, a canal-side house purchased from another Dutch design celebrity, Benno Premsela, is a striking example of the diversity of his interests: a jumble of styles, all tastefully arranged. Benno had a fantastic, free, and open spirit! he calls from the kitchen with enthusiasm. In the eighties he had a kind of home-gallery in this room. Look at the cotton carpet you are sitting on. That was revolution-ary in those days! Besides being a designer, Bakker is also a cultural entrepre-neur and mentor. He was and is a decisive influence on the interna-tional promotion of Dutch design, though both his designs (jewellery, interior and industrial design) and his role as teacher and guest-curator (as early as 1980 he organized the exhibition Design from the Netherlands in Stuttgart, which toured Europe for four years,

commissioned by the Office of Fine Arts Abroad, in Amsterdam) as well as his collaboration projects. His first collaboration was with his wife, Emmy van Leersum, whom he met in the early sixties at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, where they both studied jewellery design. Their conceptual outlook and raising the fundamental level of jewellery design made G+E (Gijs and Emmy) pioneers. Bakker: We were very different. She was functional and analytical in the step-by-step development of ideas, whereas I have a more intuitive approach. An excellent combination. Van Leersum passed away in 1984, when their son Aldo, now also a designer, was 13 years old. Bakker is keeping her legacy alive. Last year I organized a retrospective of our work and placed a series of sixteen aluminium bracelets, all slightly different, in a display case, Bakker says. It felt as if she was looking over my shoulder and knowingly whispering: Shouldnt you turn that bracelet the other way around?

Droog DesignA second important collaboration was with art historian and design critic Renny Ramakers. High-profile projects and exhibitions led their design platform Droog Design to become the driving force behind the movement that later became interna-tionally synonymous with Dutch design. Bakker and Ramakers decided on collaboration during a group exhibition in pop temple Paradiso in Amsterdam. An upstairs gallery, on a regular Sunday afternoon, in early 93. Bakker was one of the exhibitors, Ramakers organized the event. It was snowing and it was cold, but all of Amsterdam was there, Bakker recounts. The time was ripe, responses were good. I was plan-ning on focussing public attention on some former students in a shop/gallery in the Via Serva in Milan, with ceramics, textiles and jewellery. Renny and I rashly decided to combine this idea with what was being shown in Paradiso.

Gijs Bakker (1942, Amersfoort)

early60sRietveldAcademyandKonstfack Skolen, Stockholm

1965collaborationwithEmmyvanLeersum(1966marriage)

1993DroogDesignwithdesigncriticand historian Renny Ramakers

1996Chihapaura...?withMarijkeVallanzasca

Designfromjewellery,interiors,furniture, household appliances and items, to public spaces and exhibi-tions. For Polaroid, Artifort, VKB and Eno Studio, among others. His work is collected throughout the world and has received many awards since 1965,thelastofwhichwastheBennoPremsela Award in 2007, for his work at Droog Design.

Since1968TeacherattheDelftUniversity of Technology and the Design Academy, among others.

Nowguest-curator,jurymember,lecturer, and head of the Masters Department (IM) of the Design Academy, Eindhoven.

They didnt harbour any illusions, but expected to see mainly indifferent Dutch furniture salesmen, as Bakker puts it. Dutch design didnt exist after all. But fate had something else in mind. With the arrival of Andrea Branzi a group of young designers and press people in his wake the exposition gained attention. The last three days there was quite a rush.

Within a few years Droog Design as a brand put the Netherlands on the map, with its razor-shape sense of the spirit of the times and its selec-tion and later in-house production of unconventional, conceptual work with a interpretive twist. And done by a new generation that gave renewed meaning to design with clever use of combinations and recycling. World-famous designers like Richard Hutten, Marcel Wanders, Jurgen Bey, and Hella Jongerius all started out with Droog. Bakker now considers Droog Designs current position as less influential. Last June, he decided to withdraw from the fifteen-year collaboration with Ramakers, to the dismay of many. With the opening of a prestig-ious store in New York, he came to believe commercial considerations would push content further into the background. The designer is glad it is behind him. I am working on a lot of new projects. Life is fantastic. I dont want that to be ruined by something that is obsolete. Droog Design is over. Something receives attention for some ten years and then is irrevoca-bly surpassed by the next idea. Thats fine; it gives young people space. Every generation has the right to express itself and to design their own products or environment.

A career in chaptersIn spite of the diversity of his activi-ties design, teaching, lecturing, organizing exhibitions Gijs Bakkers life is divided into clear-cut chapters of 15 years. Admittedly, they run more of less parallel to each other, but it is remarkable nonethe-less: this marriage to Emmy van Leersum; the period of time he was busy with Droog Design; the work-ing relationship and romance he had with Italian gallery owner Marijke Vallanzasca, with whom he started the successful jewellery label Chi ha paura?in1996.Heiscurrentlyworking on a long-term project in Taiwan. At the request of the Taiwanese Craft Research and Development Institute, he is develop-ing a native design culture for the Taiwanese craft-industry, together with 17 young Taiwanese designers. Could this be an indication of what is to come for the next 15 years?

Design is still all about flexibility and an open mind just like in the sixties.

The differences between the Northern European and Asian views of design fascinate him immensely. Here, as with Droog Design and at the Design Academy, he comes into contact with global thinking, some-thing that has little to do with bringing Dutch character to Taiwanese design. What does it involve? A conceptual approach. Or rather, as Bakker puts it: conceptual design in context. Here the context is Taiwanese culture. His findings are being presented in the Triennale in Milan, under the label yii (see page 103), featuring products made of bamboo, porcelain, and even brick, a material that the Dutch brought to Taiwan in the seventeenth century. Bakker: One young man built sculptural, organic implements out of it. Beautiful and innovative. One exception to his career in chapters is the number of years the designer has been teaching: more than forty years. For some time now,

he has been head of the department of Masters of IM at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, a study programme that also has a strong impact on Dutch Design and for which there is fierce competition from students from all over the world. A lot is happening here, especially in the field of research. The market is changing; it demands more from designers than just a product. he explains. This can limit them, but it can also stimulate and inspire. The majority of the foreign designers weve attracted, both in Eindhoven and at Droog, have stayed in The Netherlands, because theyve found a cultural and eco-nomic climate here that is without equal anywhere in the world. For the arts, this has traditionally meant that the government has found it its mission to instruct the masses and impart culture to them. Graphic design and architecture flourished in the 1920s and 30s, thanks to the active part the government played as patron. But product design was not yet of importance. Up until the 60sand70sitwasseenasnothingmore than embellishment, strictly for marketing but without further purpose.

Think globalBakker was one of the first in The Netherlands to realize that differ-ences between art, design, and other disciplines could be done away with. And besides pioneer, he was also an advocate of the con-cept. To say that he, as teacher and lecturer, could help the Dutch design world advance even further by propagating the think global concept, he finds too bold a state-ment. Precisely because we live in such a global world, the identity of the group you are a part of, in this case the Netherlands, has to be

A CAreer in ChApters

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defined meticulously. And you have to keep working at being of interna-tional significance. It is important that the next generation of designers doesnt casually assume the reputa-tion of Dutch Design, but that they use it in a positive sense by further developing the quality of the work, such as making an even more creative response to technological developments. So much is about to happen! According to Tal, one of the IM Master students, everyone will have their own 3D-printer in a few years. What does that mean for the ordinary consumer? If I throw a party tomorrow and want to design my own cutlery and tableware, I can do that. That means is that every

Tom, Dick, and Harry cannot only design, but can actually make their own product. Furthermore, the synthetics used for these 3D-shapes will be recyclable. So my party-ware can be reused as a base material for something else. The consequence? Designers have to become even more inventive and think even more conceptually, because the context of our existence is changing. Its insane! Because if you forget that context, you become inflexible, you get sidetracked and then eventually its all over. Future designers need to be aware of that. Dutch designers have an advantage: The Netherlands has made a name for itself in terms of design. In the past, I had to plead with manufactur-ers to get things done; now the door is wide open. Both domestic and foreign companies come here to shop for talent. This does mean that the next generation really has to know whats going on in the world. Its still all about flexibility and an open mind, just like in the sixties.

About a high degree of curiosity and an almost professional development of your intuition. You have to listen to this intuition, to feel it, and to follow it, but also to cultivate it. Its a big job for the next generation of designers: to improve yourself, to improve your mind. But above all, to see, to see consciously. According to Bakker, the history of Dutch design is not the only advantage. He also considers the recent economic recession to be a blessing. Starting out in the middle of a financial crisis is fantastic! he shouts. Everything is upside down! Two years ago there was no end to the insane amounts of money being handed out for design. That has a paralyzing effect on young people who have yet to start out in the design profession. But that has all been straightened out now. Things are now being looked at much more critically, and rightly so. This makes way for new creativity. Other, no less magnificent things are bound to happen.

www.gijsbakker.com

www.chihapaura.com

The retrospective Designers on Jewellery can be seen in the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design (SFMC+D): twelve years of Chi ha paura?, containing around eighty pieces by, among others, Ron Arad, Marc Newson and Gijs Bakker himself. Until May of this year.

A CAreer in ChApters

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Bo Reudler ZT18

Frederike Top ZT18 ZT23

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Sheila Ruiz

Designing Reality

Everything we do in life has consequences. This may seem like an obvious state-ment, but at the same time we dont seem to realize it. Because of the individualism and over-specialization of our society, we have lost our interconnection with the environment. We identify only with a name and a career path, but we are so much more than that. We are an integral part of the environment we seem to be forget-ting about: we depend on it and we are constantly modifying it. We are aware of the design industrys impact on nature, but this awareness has come only now that the damage has already been done. Such is the influence of this narrow perspec-tive we have on our actions.

Why say this in a design magazine? Because Im just doing my part. Of course I identify with my name and my chosen career path, but I am also conscious of the power of my actions. Every action, no matter how small, impacts the system as a whole and this is certainly the case in the world of design. Although the conse-quences cannot always be foreseen, designers affect both everyday lives and the environment. Through their work, designers have the ability to directly alter reality. And with this influence comes great responsibility. Designers must concentrate on this all-important question: what kind of reality do we want to create?

Unfortunately, it is not as simple as that. A new eco-conscientiousness has emerged within the world of design, but these new ideas dont always fit into the require-ments set by market and industry. This makes it difficult for designers to make a living creating within these parameters, while at the same time being conscious of their ability to influence reality. But what can we do when we are facing an entire industrial and economic system that sees to be stuck in the mud? It makes it hard but at the same time any attempt at movement towards an environmental balance, and with it our own balance, is laudable.

Let me tell you a little story: there once was a village where everyone was sick because a mountain was blocking out the sunlight. One day, the oldest of the village elders took a spoon and began to make his way towards the mountain. A young man stopped him and asked him where he was going. The old man said: I am going to move the mountain with this spoon. The young man laughed at him: You cant move a mountain with a spoon! The old man replied: Yes, I know. But we must start somewhere.We cannot change the world, but we can try. Milan Design Week presents a great opportunity to analyze the magnitude of the mountain we are facing and the number of spoons it will take to move it. It is a chance for designers to unite with other creative minds and let their collective imagination flow. It is the perfect occasion to make new connections and to contemplate the meaning of design in this new decade. What mountains are we facing? Lets find the answers together. A lot of work is still to be done.

Every action has its consequence

sheilA ruizCOluMn

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Text Jeanne Tan Raoul Kramer/Collective Exposure

Perhaps youve noticed that the face of design from The Netherlands has gradually been changing over the past few years. Literally. Alongside surnames of Dutch designers con-taining numerous unpronounceable syllables and guttural Gs, youll find surnames of designers hailing from all corners of the globe: these days more and more foreign designers are deciding to call Holland home. Some of these names might ring a bell: Khodi Feiz, Satyendra Pakhal, Toms Gabzdil Libertiny, Nacho Carbonell, Minale-Maeda, Julien Carretero or perhaps the CEO and Chief Creative Director of Philips Design, Stefano Marzano.

Foreign Designers who call Holland

Home Back row L R Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin (Italy) FormaFantasma; Sayaka Yamamoto (Japan) and Boaz Cohen (Israel) BCXSY; Mario Minale (Italy/Germany) and Kuniko Maeda (Japan) Minale-Maeda

Front row L R Janne Kyttanen (Finland) Freedom of Creation; Mara Skujeniece (Latvia); Doreen Westphal (Germany); Nikola Nikolov (Bulgaria) Studio-Re-Creation

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Rotterdam, and Utrecht. Whats most interesting about this situation is the cultural exchange and impact that operating in a Dutch society has on the designers work. The Dutch are very critical and question every-

thing, says industrial designer Khodi Feiz. They love to work hard, and are not easily satisfied. As a result, Ive learnt to be much more self-critical in my work. It keeps me on my toes! Iranian born/US-educated Feiz relocated to The Netherlands to work for Philips in the early 90s, thinking his stay would last only a little while - its been 19 years since. I like the confidence of the Dutch people, not in an arrogant way, continues Skujeniece. Being here has given me the confidence and curiosity to explore, and the freedom to experiment. In Latvia, its more about following the rules. Skujeniece came to study at DAE in the mid 90s as there was no design course in Latvia, and has remained ever since. Thinking the other way around, what can Dutch designers learn from their international col-leagues? Its of course much easier to learn from another culture when you experience these cultural differences first hand, says Damian

OSullivan, who has French/Irish roots. As a consequence I think that Dutch designers dont always learn as much from their foreign counter-parts as the other way around. From what Ive observed over the years teaching at DAE, the things they may pick up are: from Icelandic students, a form of quirkiness; from Israeli students, dedication; and from Japanese students, humility. Geographic factors have a surprising impact on design. Living in a country with a very small footprint and one of the worlds highest population density rates means also having the highest density rate of designers in the world. I dont feel like I have to be competitive because Im not Dutch, so I can just do my own thing more easily, comments Skujeniece. However every disad-vantage has its advantage. Theres just no space here! remarks German-born designer Doreen Westphal. In Germany it feels like things happen further apart and design is more serious, intellectual. The Dutch scene is more condensed but that has to do with how little space there is. And because every-thing is closer together, everything influences everything else much faster, so its easier to incorporate

other disciplines into your work. Whats less conducive to creativity is the flat, monotonous Dutch land-scape. When theres literally less variety in the visual input around you, anywhere you go, it slightly numbs the mind in a way, observe Boaz Cohen and Sayaka Yamamoto from Eindhoven-based BCXSY. The accessible location in Western

Europe is however a big plus for the duo. Both Israel and Japan are quite isolated from the rest of the world. Going, for example, to exhibit in Milan is much more complex from there than it is from The

Netherlands. Israeli-born Cohen - who has Dutch roots - and Japanese-born Yamamoto are also both graduates of DAE. So what do the designers prefer to be called? I dont mind. My Czech grandmother lived in Poland before she moved to Germany. I grew up in East Germany and lived in the UK for five years before moving to The Netherlands, contin-ues Westphal. I feel European with the need to connect to my local environment. For the last few weeks that environment is Eindhoven. Damian OSullivan echoes the sentiment. I identify most strongly with being a European designer, although thats clearly not an easy label to wear. I prefer the work to bear that out. Mario Minale and Kuniko Maeda from Rotterdam-based studio Minale-Maeda: Sometimes we get called Dutch and it doesnt bother us but we both carry our baggage, so it might be more appropriate to call us Dutch-based or otherwise Japanese-Italian, although its slightly complicated as Mario grew up in Germany. According to FormaFantasma, People are obsessed by the idea of national identity while things are

International designers usually end up in The Netherlands for work, study, or love and some end up staying long term to establish a design practice. The land of the Low Skies is renowned for its liberal nature and international outlook and for an expat living in The Netherlands, its an accommodating environment. Most importantly, Dutch design receives strong cultural recognition and international attention, making this the biggest benefit of working here. Despite recent political conservatism that sees The Netherlands, and much of (Western) Europe for that matter,

lose some of its liberalness, the Dutch design community spanning design, graphic design and fashion continues to celebrate its open-ness: no design integration test required here. Dutch design institutions like The Rietveld Academy or Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) are magnets for international designers - in 2009 there were 42 nationalities represented at DAE. In the last decade, The Netherlands has become a very popular destination for foreign designers, says Gijs Bakker, who heads the IM Master program at DAE. We dont have a deep tradition in manufacturing. However what we do have is a strong creative climate and a sup-portive government. Even without the

manufacturing industry, we can still play a global role in the design world. In this creative climate, openness in design thinking charac-terizes the education. The Dutch system has little hierarchy, so design-ers here are taught to think as individuals, which is in contrast to many other parts of the world, especially Asia, Bakker continues. In The Netherlands, there is much more debate around what design is, could be, and will be, says Andrea Trimarchi from Italian design duo FormaFantasma. In Italy because of the past success of Italian design, people seem to know what good and bad design is based on the criteria of last century. Simone Farresin, the other half of the duo, comments, On the other hand, in Italy there are better manufacturers with more knowledge and experi-ence. You can easily find craftspeo-ple and companies to help develop your projects just by looking around the neighbourhood you live in. This is the third year the duo have been working in Eindhoven, which is where they established their studio after graduating from the DAE IM Masters program.

Identity is not defined only by geographical factors anymore. FormaFantasma

Complementing openness in design thinking is the possibility to work independently. Without having to rely on the commissions from

manufacturers and assisted by initiatives supporting creative industries and some cultural funding, designers, if they choose to, are able to run their practices autonomously. This isnt an environment that suits all designers, and is supportive particu-larly of those with an experimental approach, strongly favouring self-production. Latvian-born designer Mara Skujeniece relates it to one of The Netherlands best-loved symbols: the bicycle. Theoretically, if your car or the train doesnt work, then you can always bike! In the design process here, it works like this too. You have the freedom to move using your own force, (only dont get a flat tyre!) but you can still move. Youre your own engine. Young designers are respected in The Netherlands, which is a major difference with many of the designers home countries. Farresin and Trimarchi add, If you work in your home country you can of course more easily create your own network. Despite this, here we feel free to do what we like. Sometimes we think people dont understand how special it is that so many designers are working as independent designers in The Netherlands. It could be expected that the international designers would congregate in Amsterdam. Surprisingly, partly due to reasons of economy and space, theyre based in various cities including Eindhoven,

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"Even without the manufacturing industry, we can still play a global role in the design world." Gijs Bakker

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much more complex: our graduation project (Moulding Tradition) is about cultural ambiguity. Sometimes were defined as Young Italian designers, other times as Dutch designers. These definitions are simplifying a more complex scenario where identity is not defined anymore only by geographical factors. Geography does play a role how-ever in the ability of the designers to stay in The Netherlands long term: the design community might wel-come designers of all nationalities, but Dutch immigration policy, which

favours the EU, complicates the situation. For now, the designers feel completely at home in The Netherlands - the only major draw-back being missing the food from their home countries. But if they were ever to leave, what would they take with them? Minale-Maeda sum it up best: For sure the openness in design and thinking and the Dutch working mentality and method - the approach that nothing is ever impossible that you get when you create the land yourself.

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1 Barn, Mara Skujeniece2 Made by Bees vase,

Studio Libertiny, photography Raoul Kramer/Collective Exposure

3 Red Blue Lego Chair , Minale Maeda

4 The White Rabbit, Studio-Re-Creation

5 Skin collection, Nacho Carbonell

6 Dragcollection,JulienCareterro, photography Raoul Kramer/Collective Exposure

7 The Archetypical Vase, Joana Meroz and Andrea Bandoni, photography: Suzana Camara Leret

8 Baked, FormaFantasma9 CHANGE!, BCXSY10 TAK floor lamp, Khodi

Feiz11 Solar Lampion, Damian

OSullivan12 Concrete mug, Doreen

Westphal, photography Jeroen van der Wielen

13 Spool vases, Mara Skujeniece

I think that Dutch designers dont always learn as much from their foreign counterparts as the other way around. [] the things they may pick up are: from Icelandic students, a form of quirkiness; from Israeli students, dedication; and from Japanese students, humility." Damian OSullivan (Irish/French Dutch designer)

fOreign designers whO CAll hOllAnd hOMe

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Kiki van Eijk and Joost Bleiswijk ZL12 ZL13

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Rory Dodd

How not to be a designer

Welcome to Milano 2010.What are you here for?

After all these years and after all these new events and festivals, in all these differ-ent countries and cities, why is this particular week in Milano still the most important occasion on the design calendar? Why is it still the one that everybody has to be at, to show at and to visit, again and again and again?

This is our lucky 13th year here and the 10th year of showing at the Salone. Im here for the scary stuff: to find it, to work with it and to tell people about it. The scary stuff is our code, our term to describe the design gold that we gather in Milan, that we come here to discover and experience, a term coined by very good friend and long time supporter of Designersblock, the talented Mr Simon Waterfall. If you dont know him, then google and enjoy. He went to the Salone a few years back and said that there was no scary stuff.

For me, some of the scariest stuff has consistently been the output of the designers, companies and schools from the Netherlands. It was a major motivating factor for us to begin doing what we have been doing for the last dozen years or so. The work and the ideas of the Dutch are ones you really dont expect, things that you cannot fully understand but that will thrill, provoke and inspire you for years. The quality of thinking and the ambition of Dutch design has always been a datum for us.

The other reason I am here, is the same reason this column is called How not to be a designer.

When Designersblock came about in 1998, we introduced a group of Dutch designers and companies to the UK. People who were little known then, but many of whom are established and famous now. Hella Jongerius, Ineka Hans, Richard Hutten, Casper Vissers, DMD, JKN Arnhem and others too numerous to include here, all took part in the first Designersblock in 98 at the Truman Brewery in East London.

To me the most interesting person in that first show was Teake Bulstra, founder of D.M.D. He was the one that went to college and decided not to be a designer. He was the one who set up a company that made it possible for mere mortals to have a little or big piece by Droog Design in their everyday worlds. He got it manufac-tured, packaged and distributed to retailers around the globe. Not all design needs to be owned but it does need to be available, otherwise what is the point? Teake made it available and for me that was my first glimpse into design infrastructure. In the insane, drink fuelled hurly-burly of this Milano week, its easy to stumble past them without noticing. But these ladies and gentlemen who join the dots, see the patterns, take the risks and do their thing are important. Just like designers, they work with possibilities, imagine a future and make it happen.

Look after them and theyll look after you.

Rory Dodd, Co-founder of Designersblock Location FuoriSalone 2010 Revel Scalo dIsola, Via Thaon De Reve 3, Milano (Zona Isola)

RoRy DoDDCOLUMN

SustainableDesign in TheNetherlands

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The Wattcher by Marcel Wanders & Innovaders

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Text Thies Timmermans, Corn Wentink and Judith van den Goor (a contribution by O2 Nederland: Creative Network for Sustainability)

In the past, The Netherlands has been a trendsetter in the field of sustainable product design. Many projects and individual design-ers have contributed to sustainable products and the develop-ment of the field. What is the current status of sustainable product design in the Netherlands and what can we expect in the future? With these questions in mind, we asked four major players in the field for their opinion.

The development of sustainable design

According to Andy van den Dobbelsteen, the Netherlands has seen three distinct waves of sustain-ability. The first wave began in the 70s as a result of statements made by the Club of Rome. The Brundtland Report caused the second wave, which began in the Netherlands around 1990 and resulted in vigor-ous implementation of sustainability in government policy. This period also saw the onset of considerations of sustainability in industrial product development. In Conny Bakkers opinion, industrial designers became convinced at the beginning of this second wave that designers could make a difference when it came to sustainability. Van den Dobbelsteen, himself a child of the second wave, is educating the students of the third wave. This wave was ushered in around2006intheNetherlands,byAl Gore and the broadcasting of a documentary on Cradle to Cradle on Dutch television.

Market introduction of sustainable products

It is notable that in the current period, sustainability is far better received by the market. According to Siem Haffmans, sustainability is now seen as a mark of quality, but it will be taken for granted by consumers of the future. That is why many Dutch companies are working on sustain-ability. Philips has stated that 40% of its turnover is made up of green and/or energy-saving products. TNT is working on carbon-neutral transport and DSM is developing a water filter. To say nothing of the LED-lamp that has been marketed by Lemnis. Piet Hein Eek also believes sustainability should be self-evident in the design and purchase of products. In his view, we cannot continue plundering the natural resources the earth has given us. In terms of architecture and urban development, any self-respect-ing Dutch architectural firm involves sustainability in its design process, according to Andy van den Dobbelsteen. A few examples of companies at the forefront: Thomas Rau, SeARCH, Paul de Ruiter, opMAAT, and Kristinsson. SeARCH,

for instance, has an internal think tank: GreenReSeARCH. This think tank conducts research into sustain-able techniques and concepts, such as energy labels, zero-energy principles, cradle to cradle, and sustainability of materials.

Conny Bakker thinks it is a shame there are few new trends and developments relating to sustainabil-ity in the Netherlands, as of late. There are mainly a great deal of paper projects with a visionary aura (forexamplethe360PaperBottle),but they rarely reach the market-place. Those that do reach the market are generally invisible. She calls it Silent Green: sustainable activities that take place in the background, that are hardly visible to the consumer, or barely acknowl-edged by the business community. Siem Haffmans believes, however, that businesses are proud of their sustainable activities and style themselves accordingly.

Once designers develop even a small sense of awareness concerning sustainability, it will not let them go. Like a kind of ineradicable virus. Andy van den Dobbelsteen

There is even a question of whether companies apply sustainability correctly in their products. Piet Hein Eek observes that sustainable products that are thrown away after only a few years will do little to improve the environment. Conny Bakker mentions IKEAs solar cell powered lamp, the Sunnan. After calculation of its environmental impact, this product is shown not to be sustainable at all.

sustAinAble design in the netherlAnds34 35

The four experts

Siem HaffmansSocial entrepreneur and founder of the Dutch sustainable design studio IDEAL&CO. Also the creative brain behind the Ragbag, a trendy bag made of recycled plastic collected by ragpickers in India.

Andy van den DobbelsteenProfessor of Climate Design & Sustainability at the Faculty of Architecture at the Delft University of Technology. He is also expert for and author of the website www.duurzaamgebouwd.nl and editor and translator of Jn Kristinssons book Integrated Design Holistic architecture.

Conny BakkerUniversity lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture at the Delft University of Technology and originator of the unique minor Sustainable Design Engineering, which will be offered coming year for the third consecutive year, in collaboration with Wubbo Ockels, professor of Sustainable Technology (ASSET).

Piet Hein EekDesigner and founder of design studio Eek & Ruijgrok and the one-man business Piet Hein Eek. Here he concentrates on the design of small furniture series in which he combines the use of unusual materi-als and uncommon, but simple production processes.

Piet Hein Eek

Piet Hein Eek

This article was compiled by the editors of O2 Magazine, part of O2 Nederland. O2 Nederland is an association of designers that deal with sustainability in a professional occupation. O2 Nederland has been facilitating meetings and organizing events since 1993. Within our network of motivated professionals we have an extensive and profound knowledge base. For instance, O2 members laid the groundwork for Ecodesign. We share this knowledge with each other and apply it to diverse sustainability issues. O2 Nederland publishes its own magazine and is part of O2 Global Network, which is active in more than 50 countries. See www.o2nederland.org for more information.

The role of the designerThe interviewees are of one mind when it comes to the on the role of the designer. They agree that the designer should put his creativity and his ability to come up with new things, to use in the transition to a sustainable society. To this purpose aesthetically pleasing products should be designed, based on new techniques, so that they will be accepted by the market and by the consumer. To do this, Siem Haffmans notes, it is important that the designer think more strategically, not on the product level, but on the social level. The designer will need to become familiar with the subject matter, seeing as he will be working in a team of scientists, engineers, and other specialist. There should be a shift from ego-designers, to eco-designers. No design gods like Marcel Wanders or Philip Starck, but social, sustainable designers like Piet Hein Eek or Trevor Baylis. It should be noted that Marcel Wanders seems to have taken a first step in this direction. Conny Bakker points out the Wattcher as a product that contributes to a change in consumer lifestyle. This product was designed by Marcel Wanders in collaboration with Innovaders. Marcel Wanders says about the product: The Wattcher is designed to be the ticking heart of the home. The design is very clean and has urgency in pointing out your energy consumption. Wattcher is more than just a product; it is a strategy that stimulates awareness. According to Conny Bakker, this type of product requires more of the designer than the use of the right materials; it also involves a bit of psychology. Siem Haffmans notes that Dutch designers, who concern themselves with sustainability, return to the source and in doing so use original, natural materials (see box). They are not afraid to take a different road than the cheapest or the easiest, a trend set earlier by Piet Hein Eek. Andy van den Dobbelsteen has noticed that once designers develop even a small sense of awareness concerning sustainability, it will not let them go. Like a kind of ineradica-ble virus, you start to use it in an amusing way.

GoingGreen

Text Eva Olde Monnikhof, project manager Creative Industries at Creative Amsterdam

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Young Dutch designers

Many young, up-and-coming designers fall into the sustainable category. It seems like a trend to return to the pure crafts as a designer, and to communicate this plainly. See for example the product series Drawn from the clay by Atelier NL, the Flax product series by Christien Meindertsma, or the wall and floor decorations by Claudy Jongstra. These are projects that draw on a craft and from that yield beautiful products. And because crafts are an old art form, the materials and the process that enters into it are often natural. No environmentally pollut-ing additives and machines are necessary, because they didnt have them in the old days either. You know which sheep your sweater comes from and from which clay your mug is made, because prod-ucts are produced locally. This trend produces sustainable products in a natural way. It is question-able whether sustainability is an underlying princi-ple, but at least it is a result and that is a welcome bonus. And whether or not sustainability is a basic principle, at least there is an awareness among the majority of the new generation of designers. They no longer carelessly fling plastic objects into the world. They consider processes and consequences.

The trend Piet Hein Eek started in the 90s by building scrap-wood furniture is now frequently copied in economy brand stores. At Xenos and Blokker you cant help but trip over cupboards, fruit bowls, and stools made of old wood. Here youll find the interpretation of Piet Hein Eeks design furniture in dark wood, preferably with a bit of peeling paint. Purely aesthetic and of little sub-stance, because whether this is truly old and/or used wood remains to be seen if. And the products arent very sustainable; these stores are merely capitaliz-ing on a trend for furniture with a used look.

The same is true for Christien Meindertsmas prod-ucts. Her hand knitted, woollen pouf is a beautiful seating element. Furthermore, it is a sustainable product, so it is a very good example of how a sustainable product can be appealing and high in quality. This was also noticed by the other players in the market and within no time similar poufs were for sale everywhere. Not quite sustainable, not quite 100% wool, a little cheaper, and a whole lot uglier.

Rag-bag

Christien Meindertsma

Just a quick peek in my shopping bag: muesli, soy milk, organic vegetables and eco-friendly fish. Just a glance at my house: some second-hand furniture from Martin Visser for Rietveld, a new piece by Marcel Wanders, a few Thonet chairs rescued from a dumpster, and a lot of unknown thirties and fifties designs. All bought at the local recycle store. I am the dream consumer of anything biological, eco-friendly, cradle-to-cradle, and more. Since the nineties, when money was no object, sustainable or eco-friendly design has become the trend for modern-day yuppies. As so many of this generation, I want my house to be authentic and my food to be honest but my lifestyle to be glamorous. I pay for what I consider to be quality and one of the standards for quality is responsibility. Sustainable design fits this need.

The White Rabbit, Studio Re-Creation

3938 gOing green

Sustainable design, however, is something that did not emerge as a trend. The wish to create objects, buildings or services that comply with the principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability, is a logical response towards the over-consuming society. But it is not logical that the first response to this society came from the sector that thrives on consumption: Design. The opening statement of Victor Papaneks Design for the real world, published in 1970 in Sweden, says it all. Industrial designers have a profession that is harmful to the world. Designers create products that people seldom need, but their clever designs make them desirable. Luckily enough some of the design professionals are thoroughly aware of their difficult position and come up with solutions. Good practices in the current design world can be found in all types of design companies all over the world with some focal points in Scandinavia, the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands big boys such as Ahrend and Droog Design have been involved in sustainable solu-tions since the beginning of the nineties, spending R&D funds and public money to become green. But rookies such as Bo Reudler, Doreen Westphal and Studio Re-Creation also show that sustain-able solutions do not necessarily require deep pockets. Intriguingly enough, all the examples mentioned here have a different take on sustainability. While Reudlers work is that of a craftsman (hand-made of natural products), Westphal is eagerly searching for new types of materials and production techniques in collaboration with the regular industry. Finally, Studio Re-Creation is the epitome of recycling glamour. Their last project involved creating two lamps out of two Eames Chairs. With so many different ways of making sustainable design, the question can be raised whether all Western designers are being sustainable in some way. Producing in your own Western country is considered to be

sustainable, but producing near your market is considered equally so. But what if your main market is in a country that has a different take on dealing with waste? Or paying wages? Or treating staff? Isnt the real question whether or not every company can be sustainable be-cause the definition gets interpreted any way we like it and not because we do something about our footprint?In order to find an answer to this rather cynical question we have to go back to the idealists. What did E.F. Shumacher say in his Small is beautiful (1973), and what is it that Michael Braungart (2002) is striving for? Different things so it seems. Schumacher looks at sustainability from an economic perspective. He realised, long before Al Gore did in 2006,thattherewillcomeatimewhen all natural resources are depleted. From an economic

perspective that is both a good and a bad thing. The good is that scarce resources are worth a lot of money, the bad is that scarce resources create an unstable situation that is likely to end in war. The end of civilisation as we know it. And, though it might have something to do with Shumacher being an English gentleman, the end of civilisation was not something he had fancied. Therefore, he proposed that we should be careful with our natural resources. Braungart on the other hand looks at things from a material perspective. As a chemist it is logical to think of materials, to think of alternatives, to think of re-using old materials as new materials. Hence the concept of cradle-to-cradle was born. Though their ways of looking at things might be different, Braungart and Shumacher are two sides of the

same story. They both realise that we are wasting our resources and that we need to come up with alternatives in order to maintain the lifestyle we prefer: responsible, yet glamorous. The one part of the definition that I left out in the overview above is the one causing confusion. Its the social aspect of sustainability. As an outsider, I am surprised by the fact that only taking care of people or a community could be enough to rank as sustainable. Even asking nothing more than socially relevant questions through art or design is sometimes marked as social sustain-ability. But when I think about the Hosting Parasites jewellery by Kathy Ludwig, I have to disagree. This would mean that all good art is sustainable.

I want my house to be authentic, my food to be honest but my lifestyle to be glamorousEva Olde Monnikhof

In my opinion, social sustainability should be an additional requirement to the economic and/or the ecologi-cal part of the definition. Merely a social aspect is not enough. Daring the observer to change his mind with respect to beauty is an useful and socially relevant task for artists and designers, but does it make the work sustainable? If the design is made out of natural resources, by hand, it just might. Sustainability is re-using old materials or looking for new ones that are non-toxic. It is growing your own vegetables in your own garden without spraying them with pesti-cides. It is buying your clothes at a second-hand shop, or at least taking your old ones there. It is borrowing your books from the library or from friends. It is bringing your own mug to work, instead of using 10 plastic cups a day. It is realising that your

soy milk comes all the way from Asia, while you live in the biggest milk producing country in the world. It is buying presents that your friends really want, instead of something theyll throw in the bin. And it does not matter whether you act from an economic perspective or from an idealistic/ecological perspective. The outcome will be the same.

And yes, sometimes sustainability is buying a beautiful piece of abso-lutely unnecessary design, with no function at all that you will love and cherish for the rest of your life. As long as your children take it to a second-hand shop after you passed away.

Doreen Westphal

Bo Reudler

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Onno Schelling and Marjolijn Borsboom ZL03

Pieke Bergmans ZT10

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DutchDesignWeek23/31October 2010Eindhoven> The largest design event in the Netherlands!> More than 1500 participating professionals!> 290 different exhibitions, workshops, seminars and lectures!> 60 locations in the centre of the city and former industrial buildings!> More than 115.000 visitors!> Check www.ddw.nl for more info!

DDW] Adv. Tuttobene:Opmaak 1 26-02-2010 10:39 Pagina 1

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An interview with Alessandra Salici, ZonaTortona Project ManagerBy Maria Serra Photography Valentina Zanobelli

Growing old brings its own rewards. Especially if you are a young designer, or a junior design event that started off on a small scale and turned into a giant, a decade later. According to Alessandra Salici, ZonaTortona Project Manager, the time is now ripe to gather the fruits and plant new seeds. Borrowing her pragmatism from the Dutch, she sets the metaphor aside and looks back over the past 10 years of Dutch design in the ZonaTortona, with a clear vision of what is going to happen next. Many designers and com-panies came here and stayed, others just tested the waters for a season or two, she recollects, but those who succeed-ed were the ones with a real story to tell.

The Age of Maturity

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When did the Dutch first come to the ZonaTortona?

As soon as the FuoriSalone reached an international audience, I would say. It all started out in the year 2000 with our first event at Superstudio, which received promi-nent media coverage. The year after, many foreign companies and designers wanted to be included, as it was an outstanding and ground-breaking venue available at a reasonable price. At the same time, they started asking for other venues in the area with a similar post-indus-trial feel. It has to be said that while the creative conversion of former industrial sites was common practice in other European cities, in Milan it was quite a novelty at that time. When we started working with superstudio at the end of the nineties there were still machinery in opera-tion and the entire neighbourhood was in the process of transformation. The Dutch were undoubtedly among the first to spot this opportunity and they arrived in droves at the ZonaTortona.

Who were the pioneers?

The very first designer to come to Superstudio was Marcel Wanders zt17 in 2001. Actually, he had already colonized Cappellinis venue the year before, showcasing a selection of his personal works together with some pieces edited by Cappellini itself. When he first came to Superstudio he was a young, enthusiastic and talented designer already fairly established in his niche. He gave a very successful small-scale show, presenting what was set to become his first Moooi zt17 collection. From that moment on, our paths overlapped for a while. He set a benchmark for other designers and we gained increasing recognition on the international design scene. We worked very well together, sharing impressions and ideas. Several companies then joined in at his suggestion, and within a short period of time the ZonaTortona was teeming with Dutch designers. This was actually made possible by the Dutch government and by Dutch institutions, who did and indeed to this day continue to do a remarkable job providing first-rate higher education and supporting young designers

financially. At that time, a lot of interest-ing and promising names came out of the Droog Design collective and the Eindhoven School. zl02

What was their attitude at that time?

Above all, very informal and open-minded. I believe their general attitude towards people and life in general has always been reflected in their way of working. Starting with Wanders, whom I got on well with right from the start, I have always felt at ease with the Dutch and appreci-ate their easy-going outlook. However, what struck me most was seeing so many designers turning up in their little vans and setting every-thing up with their own hands so fast and efficiently! I was impressed by their pragmatic way of dealing with problems and by their hands on approach. Soon afterwards many of them became very well known, some even famous, but nevertheless they have held on to this quality.

It was the Dutch who turned cocktail parties into must-have events.Alessandra Salici

Did they become more arrogant?

No, not really. Not even Wanders, despite being regarded now as a design superstar. He is one of the most well-established figures in the ZonaTortona, yet his relations with us and with the public are still warm and friendly. The same is true of other big names such as Maarten Baas. fs06

You said they were well-organized from the beginning, from a practical point of view... Were their goals similarly effective?

They were, indeed. We Italians, at a first glance, tend to underestimate young designers, because we think they are not ready to manage complex projects. But in fact, the

majority of them are extremely well organized, both practically and mentally. In my experience, the Dutch have two main characteristics: they are easy-going, as I said, but also very determined, with a keen sense of business awareness. Even the very young ones have identified their goals and know how to pursue them.

Apart from the domino effect, why do you think the ZonaTortona was so attractive to the Dutch?

I think they were drawn to the opportunity to operate in a post-industrial context that had a particu-larly decadent flair. They were inspired by the urban and social makeup of the district and it was this that encouraged them to return in increasing numbers year after year. I can also say that the ZonaTortona offered various unusual venues to rent at very low prices, especially in the early years. In most cases, these were off-the-cuff spaces such as former artisan workshops, shops, offices, garages. In that period the area was not strictly regulated and this allowed for a more spontaneous form of communication, although a little chaotic and somehow nave at the same time.

Since then, they seem to have clung to these kind of unconventional spots, but in different ways. How have their needs changed along the way?

After about 2007, the rents in-creased but the designers did not want to lose the ZonaTortona audience. Basically, I noticed two different trends there were design-ers who wanted to get maximum exposure and ones who avoided it favouring a more intimate

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atmosphere instead. In the latter group, there was Kiki and Joost. zl13 They were very young and fairly unknown at the time but they literally burst onto the art design scene. They took a cosy little loft with a mezza-nine bedroom which also functioned as their home. They cooked and slept there while at the same time exhibiting their really very refined collection including an amazing hand-made bedspread. On the other hand, the more attention seeking elements came up with new open air solutions, like the designers from Design Express, who parked their own brightly decorated caravans right on the street. Unusual communications strategies have been adopted as well by some who chose to remain in the more crowd-ed, trendier location like Superstudio. A good example is the duo Niels van Eijk and Mirjam van der Lubbe, zl09 who presented a project sponsored by the Dutch Flower Council. I still have a delight-ful memory of them inviting visitors to try on their clothes made entirely of flowers. They really created the most stunning living sculptures. By the way, I believe that Dutch design-ers in general have always had a knack for arousing surprise. They always want to leave a strong impression on the audience, but at the same time they never overdo it. Moooi is very much the same and has always had bright ideas, includ-ing welcoming the press with tea and biscuits served by staff dressed in traditional Dutch costume. This gave people something to talk about, but they were never considered too flamboyant.

Have things always gone smoothly?

Yes, most of the time. But, of course, every now and then some unfore-seen problems occurred, espe-cially when an out-of-the-ordinary venue had been chosen. For in-stance, I have a funny anecdote about Tuttobene zt18 and us fighting a bunch of unwanted guests: a whole lot of pigeons had colonised the abandoned warehouse where they were exhibiting. On that occasion, we had quite a hard time trying to chase the birds away. We

all wanted to find a solution, be-cause we loved the venue. In the end, someone volunteered to carry out a kamikaze mission. He climbed up to the ceiling on a 10-metre ladder and managed to fasten a net over the whole space! From a personal point of view, I learned a lot from that experience. I can honestly say it was like a practice run for me. Some outdoor events were quite problematic as well, like the Design Express. Certain companies were not too impressed by noisy neighbours, pumping up the music and drinking beer close to their more institutional venues. I remember they were quite bothered by that. I really saw two opposite worlds colliding on that occasion, but, in some respects, it was thanks to these young designers that even the more traditional companies started to experiment with other approaches. The designers dragged them out of the Salone del Mobile and brought them to the Fuorisalone. It was a big challenge for them to open up to the audience. In most cases, they took the opportunity to update their brand image and broaden their appeal.

I expect a brand new generation of designers, eager to develop ideas and products that matter.Alessandra Salici

Has this had an influence on the atmosphere in the ZonaTortona?

Yes, it has. It definitely set a trend. The Dutch, as well as Giulio Cappellini, paved the way for a new style of self-promotion. Instead of straightforward product presenta-tion, they prompted companies to switch to intangible values, pioneer-ing the communication of an image or a philosophy. Their party-going spirit, which they shared with other designers from similar countries, particularly Belgium, has also been

very influential and it soon became something of a trademark for the whole ZonaTortona. It was the Dutch who turned cocktail parties into must-have events, giving the same importance to socialising as to product display. My impression is that this aspect has sometimes overshadowed the rest and got out-of-hand in more recent years, but we have now succeeded in bringing it back to a reasonable level.

What do you see as the future of Dutch design?

I expect a brand new generation of designers, eager to develop ideas and products that matter. Having strengthened its reputation and reliability, Dutch design like the ZonaTortona itself, has now reached maturity. It is ready to take on the challenges of a new era. Perhaps by leaving behind some of its more commercial aspects and bringing the product to the foreground. Unfortunately, in the last two years there has been a significant decline in the number of Dutch designers in the ZonaTortona and I think that many firms have suffered severely from the financial crisis, especially the smaller ones with fewer resourc-es. However, my hope is that this situation will not damage those designers who have decided to follow a more research-focused path.

What about ZonaTortona? What is going to be your next step?

At the moment, we are focusing mainly on international communica-tions. ZonaTortonas alchemy is very much one of a kind, because its success was the result of a combina-tion of peculiar and extremely favourable historical circumstances. Our main difficulties arise from operating in a territory that is not easy to control. We need to widen our reach if we want to overcome this. Our aim is not to replicate the ZonaTortona experiment, but rather to build on our experience in order to promote new design events in the future, whether in other areas of Milan or elsewhere.

the Age Of MAturity

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Victor le Noble, Co-founder of Tuttobene

Its 2010 already?!A new year, a new fair, new people, and new projects. Things are moving fast and the design business is definitely one of them.

I first came to Milan 11 years ago. It was January and I was here to study for 6 months. After an intense period of getting to know the city and all its possibilities, I decided to visit university. Soon I learned about Italian design, about its history, and its importance. Names of great designers from the past appeared on my class schedule. Names that I only knew from the captions below pictures of their designs in my books. Now I learned they were still alive!

Around that same time the Milan Furniture Fair took place and I went to visit the Fair and numerous spots around the city. I saw presentations from famous brands like Cappellini and Edra, but I also saw the Dutch Individuals, Droog, and Designersblock. Wow! What was that?

Slowly the world of design was revealing itself to me. I realized that what I was learning about at university actually was part of a real world, with real people, design studios, and products. All this made me think. In a way, I was part of it too, but in what way? Was I supposed to become a designer too? Should I be showing my products here in Milan one day too?

As an exchange student I felt quite privileged. I was a guest in Milan and had the opportunity of focussing on my own ideas and artistic DNA. The Milanese univer-sity wasnt exactly breathing down my neck with engineering classes and other university bureaucracy and demands, so I wasnt distracted by them. When I thought about it, I realized that there was quite a big difference in the way my fellow students and I approached design. I believed things needed to be practical, logical and, technically sound. They believed a design needed to be personal, first and foremost. At least thats what I think they believed.

After returning to Holland and graduating on the design of 2 chairs, I started to work in the furniture industry. As soon as I could, I convinced my boss we needed to take a business trip to Milan, for inspiration. It was wonderful to see how much had changed in those 3 years! The next year we started Tuttobene.

Since then, 7 years have passed and we will have our 7th Tuttobene presentation at this edition of the Salone. And although I have now become a small part of the world of design, I still feel like that observing student who wants to understand what is going on.

So, a new year, a new fair, new people, and new projects. What do I expect? First of all, I have to admit I still love logic and practicality, but through the years I have learned to appreciate the personal side of products more and more. I even think the best products tell the most personal stories. So I expect little, but I hope to find beautiful stories and to find some time to learn about their true value and intrinsic quality, and to slow down a bit.

victor le noble

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Holland as aDesign System

Text Erik Hesseling Photography Simone Desiato

This article is an abstract of a comprehensive study entitled Designers from the Netherlands in Italy; a research on strat-egy to successfully enter the Italian market. This study was commissioned by the Royal Dutch Embassy in Rome, in col-laboration with the Delft University of Technology. 25 inter-views with leading designers and design critics in the Netherlands and Italy form the basis for the answers to the research questions. The research was conducted by Erik Hesseling as a final project at the TU Delft.

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Many influential designers are born in the Netherlands. They create products that amaze the world and have been awarded many important design prizes in recognition of their achievements. This recognition takes them everywhere. The Dutch inva-sion is inevitably present at the Milano Design Week or Salone del Mobile, one of the most important and inspiring design fairs in the world. When wandering round the Salone, hopefully you will realize the person standing next to you could be Marcel Wanders, Maarten Baas or the next world-famous designer. These designers may have been born in the Netherlands, but their talent was cultivated in Milan and they became famous around the world. There seems to be some kind of magical soil in the Netherlands from which these creative fruits spring. Unquestionably these fruits were watered by government assistance. Some of the biggest, juiciest melons were called Dutch Design and were pampered even more. But what about the rest of the fruit growing in the same field? Milan, the economic centre of Italy, has been known as the capital of design for many years now. The three main pillars of the Italian design economy are widely repre-sented in Milan; Food, Furniture and Fashion are without a doubt con-nected to this city, with its fancy restaurants, its fashion shows and its design fairs. In the rest of Italy however, design activities seem to be limited. This raises the question of whether Italy, with its world famous reputation as a design country, is really as interesting as Milan itself. As mentioned before, the Netherlands has been a breeding ground for several revolutionary movements in design, such as De Stijl at the beginning of the twenti-eth century. Mondriaan, Koolhaas and Van Doesburg became world-famous because of the impact of their unconventional approach. 15 years ago a new, avant-garde movement was born in the Netherlands and is still very much alive today: the Dutch Design movement, representing designers with highly developed commercial skills and a talent for thinking out of

the box. Ironically one of the design-ers of this movement literally burnt a chair from De Stijl, marking the beginning of the new era, irony being one of the key selling points for Dutch Design products. In Italy, the Dutch Designers are also well-known and are actively involved in design activities. But does this mean the Dutch Design movement has opened Italys doors to other designers from the Netherlands, not directly con-nected with the Dutch Design movement?

If Artemide had designed the Yang lamp from a users perspective, it would not have been the innovative product it is. A user does not ask for a lamp to change the mood in a room.

To find answers to these questions a better understanding of Italys design culture is necessary. A country like Italy has an enormous power of attraction. Many designers, myself included, feel a need to experience first-hand what Italy has to offer, both on an artistic and on a financial level. Artistically, Italy is an inexhaustible source of inspiration and action. There is history around every corner and even old ladies on the street seem to have an opinion about the design of the renewed Fiat Cinquecento. Still, life as a designer in Italy is hard, many of my interviewees stated. Designers live from day-to-day, taking any assignment they can get their hands on, even if it is not within their area of expertise. Carpe Diem is still a motto for many Italian product designers. Ironically, this attitude is one of the reasons Italian design has achieved its current status.Inthe1950sand60sItalywas home to a vast group of

architects, making it difficult to find a job. Rather than fight for assign-ments, many of them started looking for other kinds of employment, which usually had nothing to do with architecture. The architectural ap-proach to product design became one of the strengths of Italian design. This approach focuses more on context, rather than on actual user needs. Products by Alessi (form follows fiction), Kartell (Bookworm) and Artemide (Yang lamp) became icons because of their innovative design perspective and their specific Italian approach. If Artemide had designed the Yang lamp from a users perspective, it would not have been the innovative product it is. A user does not ask for a lamp to change the mood in a room. The popularity of this contextual approach to design explains why it was not a coincidence that designers from the Netherlands, who em-ployed just such an approach, became famous in Italy. Italians understood their products as they did their own and embraced the Dutch Designers. And the Dutch Designers embraced Italy. In this vibrant, dynamic yet fundamentally unchanging country, Dutch Designers found their capital: Milano. Its international orientation, the clusters of craftsmanship in the north and the yearly Milano Design Week are just some of the factors that make Milan perfectly suitable for Dutch Design activities. Many designers from the Netherlands have found and can still find scores of opportunities here. So, is the rest of Italy as interesting for design activities as Milan? This question can be answered quickly. Italy is a very fragmented country. Milan is nothing like Rome and Rome is certainly nothing like Naples. Design is not as important in Palermo as it is in Milan. The differences are quite extraordinary. Therefore the focus on Milan as centre for design activities is both obvious and justified. This then raises the question of which steps to take, in and around Milan, as a designer from the Netherlands, in order to successfully exploit design activities. To be honest, if I knew exactly, I would be

doing just that: applying these steps to the exploitation of my design business in Italy, and I would not just be writing this article. But in my research, I found quite a few clues. Italy is home to some of the worlds finest production companies, using the finest techniques. This high-quali-ty production capability is one of the keys to Italys success. Production companies can be found in various material-based clusters, surrounding Milan. The Veneto region has its plastics, the Omegna region has its metal. Any shape imaginable can be made by these production compa-nies, with the utmost respect for the design. The Dutch approach would be: how do we make this product designable? The Italian approach is: How do we make a design produc-ible? This is one of the reasons Italian techniques are further devel-oped and Italian craftsmen are more skilled than most of their Dutch colleagues. However, the Italian industry is under a lot of pressure today. Production prices are on the rise, and exporting production - the mainstay of Italian design fame - to Asian countries is becoming a viable alternative. The industry is aware of these changes and they are arming themselves with a new strategy, outlined in Il primo rapporto osservatorio nazionale distretti Italiani (The first national observa-tional report on the Italian clusters). An improved infrastructure, interna-tionalisation of the clusters and a focus on R&D are the main compo-nents of this new strategy, according to the report. Italy will no longer be where designers produce their mass series, but will specialize in the production of highly advanced prototypes.

Another of the keys to success in Italy, which I myself have already taken up: Italians like their own culture and love to speak their own language, so learn the language and speak it a lot. Go out for drinks, to dinners and aperitivos. Build networks. Find an Italian girlfriend or boyfriend to teach you how to speak, eat, design, live and love. Try to get some sense of Italy into your DNA. Become a part of the family

and Italy will be a warm blanket, manufacturing the products of your dreams. This approach might seems radical, but it is just part of the process of growing as a designer.

The focus should not be on merely watering the biggest fruits in the field, but rather on the condition of the soil, which yields other fruit as well.

These keys to success I have men-tioned, are appealing to designers from the Netherlands, better known in Italy as Dutch Designers. Dutch Design became a movement from the moment Droog arrived in Milan. It was a huge success and in a short period of time many of these Dutch Designers became stars. This did not go unnoticed by the Dutch govern-ment and they were supported financially. Everyone was so amazed by this new phenomenon that they lost sight of the fundamental values of design from the Netherlands. The Dutch have a business mentality, a conceptual way of thinking. We are born critics, but equally able to turn that critical eye on ourselves. The Dutch do not like to show off and we are certainly not a production country. There are many opportuni-ties in our design climate, where everything is possible and infrastruc-ture is good. Current legislation makes it easy to start your own design studio and grants are avail-able from different institutes. The Design Academy in Eindhoven was called the School of Cool not just because it sounds nice, but because of fundamental ways of organizing freedom in design thinking. Other design schools are also very well organized, such as the Delft University of Technology, and they arm students with the tools necessary to sell their products to the world. People are given the space to

discover and develop their talents. Designers from the Netherlands come from this system, a system perfectly suited for the growth of design talent. So has the Dutch Design movement opened doors for other designers? This is not an easy question to answer. Having com-pleted this research, I believe I am able to state that, initially, the Dutch Design movement did open doors for different designers from the Netherlands, because their typical Dutch approach was recognized and appreciated. However, if the govern-ments current promotion policy continues to focus solely on this group of already well-known designers, the revolving door will close. To answer the primary question in this article: the focus should not be on merely watering the biggest fruits in the field, but rather on the condi-tion of the soil, which yields other fruit as well. The movements De Stijl and Dutch Design were the result of a fundamentally different background, which should not be forgotten. One of the conclusions of my research is that the Dutch govern-ment should concentrate on promot-ing the background, or system, instead of the Dutch Design move-ment, which is already losing popu-larity. The final products that came from the various famous movements are no more than a result of careful planning and organizing design activities. Dutch design promotion should focus on its roots and it should be based on the Netherlands as a design system. Once again it is time for change, time to set something alight. This time we should not just burn a chair, but demolish this wrongly developed image that, in the long run, will destroy all those opportunities that have already been created.

Erik Hesseling

e.a.c.hesseling@gmail.com

hOllAnd As A design systeM

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Niels van Eijk and Mirjam van der Lubbe ZT09

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Miss Salone Socialite

Diary of a Salone Socialite

Invitations: check. Business cards: check. What would the Milan Furniture Fair be without the plethora of openings every night? As much as the week is about presenting the latest designs, its equally about making contacts over cocktails. Here we see Miss Salone Socialite in action as she air-kisses her way around Milans design festivities

Day 1

Before boarding plane, check if all party invitations are packed. Plane is full of designers heading to Salone. Get talking to photographer acquaintance whos having book launch. Another one for the diary!Arrival in Milan: smell the champagne! (and pollution). Pick up Interni Guide to see if Ive missed any parties. Take it easy on preview day. First up, installation in church: great works but cheap wine and no food! Next, celebrity launch of new Italian label. Fabulous cocktails, delectable nibbles: no credit crunch here. Meet intern from famous UK designer, got the goss about his boss (my lips are sealed). Where to end the night? Bar Basso! Taxi driver doesnt understand the fuss about Bar Basso: when DID this tradition actually begin? After more Camparis and no dinner, stumble into cab back to hotel. Its going to be a long week.

Day 2

Start evening by lining stomach with pizza slices. Delicious! Kick off with sneaker launch of so-hot-right-now Dutch friend. Walking down stairs, my heel breaks! Designer friend to rescue: he gives me a pair of his limited edition shoes. I am officially a trendsetter. Head to magazine soiree: dead boring. Move onto posh opening at ANOTHER church (is there a hidden message in this?). Drinks flowing but no mingling. Decide to save energy for tomorrow. Outside, bump into friends who twist my arm to crash VIP party at exclusive hotel. After convincing bouncers that we were famous Norwegian all-girl design quintet, we strutted in. Inside, it was designer-spotting heaven. After guzzling champagne and checking out which designer was trying to hit on whom, its time to leave. At entrance, bouncers werent letting in real Norwegian all-girl quartet who didnt have invites. We make beeline for back exit!

Day 3

Why are all the best parties on the same evening? Start at book launch. Famous US designer is trying to DJ music he made himself: bad idea. Spot hot Spanish design-er who Ive always had crush on and get talking. Thought hitting it off until his boyfriend arrives! Sign to disappear. Massive queue at next event, absolutely everyone even those with invites will have to wait their turn. Despicable big name designer turns up with entourage. All waived in immediately! It starts to rain.Finally inside. Everyone swans around pretentiously. Were just here for the expen-sive champagne anyway. Next party: saved the best for last. Bypassed enormous queue (yay for invitations), photographed on red carpet wearing trendsetting sneakers. Party in full swing! Going to dance floor, see ber famous fashion designer. Plucked up courage to ask for photo with her. Fashion friends back home will be green with envy! After dancing the night away, finally decide to call it a night. Friends in cab change minds at last minute and we head to underground party of young designers: its in an empty swimming pool! Danced even more, then gobble pizza on the way back. Oh my sore feet! (and liver) No more partying. Well, until the next Salone. Ciao for now!

miss salone socialite

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Zt19 Werner neumann - BirchWood Zt19 Werner