Newly added products on our online store include Sky planter by Patrick Morris for upside-down growth, nature-carrier Grass ring by Sign In, and “of course nothing else than another additional something” Leather stripes by Bless. Shipped right to your front door.
Not available in USA & Canada.
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Yesterday’s fan photo uploaded on our Facebook page features (most likely) the youngest new owner of Twin stopper by Sam Hecht. Twin stopper is great if you have kids running around, since it sticks out less making them less likely to trip over it. That should keep them smiling.
Share your images here.
Why did Centraal Museum acquire the Red blue Lego chair?
Firstly, because it is inspired by Rietveld who is the most important artist in our collection, and secondly, because we are interested in the more conceptual branch of design. We were the first museum to buy the Droog collection, already in the 90s. The Red blue Lego chair is the perfect combination of these two aspects.
How do you see the piece in relation to the work of Rietveld?
I see more value in the artistic qualities of this chair than in its industrial aspect—in its promise of having people do-it-themselves. I believe Rietveld valued the spatial aspect of design as much as he valued the principles of mass production.
I don’t think it is realistic that people will buy their own Lego pieces to make it, but to me, that doesn’t matter. It is the intention and meaning that counts. It stimulates people to think about design and what it means to them.
Red and Blue Chair by Gerrit T. Rietveld (1918), Red blue Lego chair by Mario Minale (2004).
How do you see the chair in relation to movements in the world today?
I think it’s better to compare the Red blue Lego chair to the Smoke version by Maarten Baas (that’s also how we show it at the Rietveld’s Universe exhibition). Rietveld was a master that made and continues to make people think about design. His presence in works by contemporary designers and in design discussions shows the actual value of Rietveld today. To me, that is the most important value of this piece.
Smoke chair by Maarten Baas (2004)
Centraal Museum Utrecht acquired the artist’s proof #1 edition of Red blue Lego chair from our collection. It will be exhibited at Rietveld’s Universe as part of Rietveld Year organized by the Centraal Museum in Utrecht to celebrate the life and heritage of Gerrit Rietveld from October 20th, 2010 until January 30th, 2011. Here is our Q&A with Rotterdam-based designer, Mario Minale of Minale-Maeda (pictured with Kuniko Maeda).
What was your starting point for this chair?
There is this expression in the world of theatre, “breaking the fourth wall.” It’s about bringing in something unexpected. It’s about addressing the audience, taking them out of their lull and involving them, even passing the responsibility onto them.
What I don’t like about icons is that we just accept them, and we no longer know what they mean, and then they are copied time and time again. I was looking for something unexpected in making a copy of an icon. I wanted to break the mould and no longer see an icon as something set in stone.
What was “the fourth wall” in your design?
It was the appropriation of two icons in a way that creates something new. I started with Rietveld’s iconic Red blue chair and brought in equally iconic Lego blocks, and I think because the spirit of Rietveld and of Lego aligned, it created a breed that resonates.
Why did you work with Rietveld’s chair?
Rietveld intended his chair to be a blueprint from which anyone could make his own chair out of readily available material. For Rietveld, variations of his design were intended. That is why the construction of his chair is so simple. There are no dovetails or other complicated joinery.
Why did you bring in Lego?
Lego represents the construction material of our age—it is convenient. It makes personal expression easy. It is a material that empowers the unqualified to create by themselves.
For Rietveld, it was boards cut to size at the sawmill that made his design accessible. One no longer had to go to the woods to chop a tree thanks to industry. For us, it is no longer about cutting and sawing, but rather about blocks that snap together, shiny finish included. Rietveld broke the chair into 14 pieces to make it easy. Lego breaks it into 4445 pieces, which makes it even more easy.
Was it in fact easy to make this chair?
Not at all. Lego is a basic toy, but the process of making a chair out of it became so complicated that it questioned the simplicity that Lego promised. The process I went through makes the chair an even more authentic copy. The result of making a copy is not a copy. It’s an authentic act.
Lego has the same tension. It stands for simplicity, but the moulds to make Lego are a best kept secret, and that’s why there are no knock-offs. One cannot get rid of complexity but can only displace it. This chair is a metaphor for that.
What do you think of the copyright laws that prevented a larger production of the Lego chair?
One cannot get the Rietveld chairs anymore. Finding a way to copy it makes it accessible, and this was my intention. The fact that copyright laws prevented us from making a larger production of the Red blue Lego chair intensifies this discussion.
Centraal Museum Utrecht acquired one piece of each item from the saved by droog. collection we presented at the Furniture Fair in Milan this year. Their acquisition is currently on view at the Centraal Museum until October 31st.
As published by Centraal Museum:
The Centraal Museum is very much interested in Droog’s critical attitude with regard to social structures. Centraal Museum director Edwin Jacobs: “With saved by droog., Droog presents a beautiful prosaic image of this time of financial crisis. After all, not everything that is created has to be new, you can also add new value to something that already exists. Because of interventions by the designers, these objects have become new products. They are conceptually strong, visually direct and aesthetically adventurous and stratified.” As is always the case with Droog, the result is a product that also takes into account the great importance of the concept behind it. This way, Droog represents, since its establishment in 1993, the conceptual character of Dutch design. It is this manner of designing which brought the design group international fame. Both national and international designers have joined the label.
In their recent review of the collection, design.nl stated:
The exhibition both in Milan and now at the Centraal Museum catches the genius of Droog. It is a contemporary yet critical embrace of design in a difficult era.
“I think the whole thing takes humorously advantage of a changed cultural and financial landscape,” says Stefan Sagmeister who printed words on a wallet about money and happiness that combined into different meanings depending on whether the wallet was open or closed.
Stefan Sagmeister does not think his wallet will change design thinking just yet. “It wont change anything as far as the manufacturing world itself is concerned,” he says. “But considering Droog is a rather influential force, the strategy of reusing an existing product – rather then designing a brand new one – might trigger similar projects within the broader design community.”
“We like the whole project because it is an observation about design yet also commercially successful,” says Mario Minale. “That is a rare combination … They had to stop selling the pieces in the end because they wouldn’t have then had anything left to exhibit.”
For more information about the current exhibition in Utrecht, click here.
Read more about saved by droog. here.
Great to see Milk bottle lamp in the trailer for the European Design Since 1985 exhibition. It’s on view at The Milwaukee Art Museum until January 9th, 2011.
The exhibition also features Chest of drawers and Rag chair.
For more information click here.
This week we have released Twin Stopper by Sam Hecht of Industrial Facility. Simply clever, Twin stopper has asymmetrical ends to deal with varying gaps between doors and floors in a compact way. Whatever you are using now, this will certainly be more elegant, not to mention safer.
Could you tell us about the philosophy behind your work?
The philosophy is simple. The world we inhabit; the people who inhabit it; the things people use to inhabit it. None of these are better or worse than the other. They are all equal. When you reach this realisation it means that a chair is no more or less important than the person sitting on it, or the room it sits in. So for a doorstop, it should relate to the door as much as relating to the room and the feet walking past.
What are your influences?
Conversations are undoubtedly my biggest influences. I have many and continue to use them as a basis for reasoning.
What was your inspiration behind the Twin stopper?
One can say a doorstopper is extremely banal. It has been with us for so long. But, what can often frustrate people about them is that the wedge inevitably sticks out too much because of the varying gap between the door and the floor, and you trip over them. To generate the form, I took a regular doorstop, cut it in half and attached both ends at right-angles. Depending on the gap size, you can turn it and the doorstop will always stay close to the door.
How do you think the Twin stopper relates to Droog?
The way I like to think of Droog is that they interject with issues of everyday life—dealing with doorbells, tablecloths, and now a doorstopper. I like the unpretentious side of Droog, and I like that one does not have to think too much about buying the Twin stopper because it is affordable. It’s a small interjection – nothing too dramatic – but it at least it makes a little bit of improvement on what’s gone before.
How do you see that your work relates to various design trends today?
There are many products that keep coming out where their starting point is novelty. It seems designers have forgotten the original purpose of what they are designing. I personally tested the doorstop for over a year. It is what it is because of how it works and not all because of how it looks.
Do you have a message to young product designers?
In some ways, it’s better to apply one’s mind to forgotten objects–the things we “use” everyday, rather than the things we “look at”. The effect on the world is of improving it ever so slightly without using a lot of resources. I think Droog has always been an inspiration to young designers because they negated the bourgeois in favour of democratic creativity. Young people could finally relate to a type of design that related to them as individuals.
Twin stopper is now available in red and black silicone at Droog Amsterdam and on Droog’s online store for € 12.50 for a set of two.
Huffington Post listed Droog New York as one of the top ten design stores in NYC!
Read more and rate their choices here.
Our second issue of the Droog magazine is out now, with news about Milan 2010, the Droog Townhouse, Pioneers of Change and more. Flip through it here, and pick up a copy at Droog Amsterdam.
Christophe Coppens’ 2010-2011 Winter collection is on view at Droog Amsterdam until October 17th and at Droog New York until September 25th.
Last week the Russia consumes design team, led by Daniel van der Velden was in Moscow for research and initial concept development. Theory & Practice published an interview by Ksenia Petrova with Daniel and Droog project & content manager, Agata Jaworska today. Here is the extended English version.
Tell us, please, what is this project about and what was its premises?
Agata: The Droog Lab was initiated in 2009 in Amsterdam by Renny Ramakers, director and co-founder of Droog, mainly for two reasons. One is this fact that more and more cities all over the world are developing in the same direction and are starting to look the same, when in reality, one knows there are real differences between them. The other is, if you look at the world of design, designers are copying and referencing each other and the design world is becoming circular and inward-looking. The Lab was started to bring designers to foreign places to find new directions for design. We will be working on eight projects over the course of four years.
Daniel: The initial idea of ‘Russia Consumes’ came from two observations that Renny Ramakers had. One was about the extreme, ‘hyperconsumption’ – diamonds, ‘bling-bling’, etcetera. The other was about peasants reading classic literature on the train. We think that these two forms of consuming might be connected – either by their extreme difference, or by the fact that they exist as part of a similar mindset or mentality. So, what we’ve been doing here this week is visiting different places, interviewing people, researching, observing and of course participating as far as we can in everyday Moscow life – and observing that through a design lens, a design point of view. What we have found is going to be translated into a design concept which can be an idea, an image, a prototype or a product. The concept will not be about Moscow but it will be informed by it.
Agata, you said, that there is a series of similar projects by Droog?
Agata: The first project was in Dubai, the second is in the Canadian Arctic, the third one is in New York, and Moscow is the fourth. There will be four more and each of them will have an exhibition and a publication.
What is the role of Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design?
What kind of outcome you are expecting from this project?
Daniel: I’m expecting that we deliver something that works on two levels; one is a level of fantasy, of fiction, or fairytale – design providing an escape route for the mind. But on the other, lower level it should be about absolutely basic elements of life, about survival in a world that is so pretty and yet so hostile. At this point I also would like to mention our team, consisting of the architect Totan Kuzambaev, graphic designer Pavel Milyakov, graphic designer Michèle Champagne and product designer Digna Kosse. Together with Agata we’ve had such a great week – and I do hope this will show off in the final result. As said before, it is going to be something conceptual as you would maybe expect from Droog.
Agata: It’s very important to note that we’re not designing for the place, even though we are working with people from here, but rather, we are learning from the place as an inspiration for a broader result.
What did you learn so far here, in Russia?
Daniel: The thing that I found very interesting about Russia as far as I’ve seen it is this vibrant and dynamic society, which coexists with institutions and government in a fascinating manner. Because there often seems to be no positive interaction at all – the government does its own things, people do their own things. You have this body of institutions that is almost like a ruin, or museum piece, and on top of that there is all that social energy. We’ve been to luxury villages and exclusive spas and shopping malls, and to a soup-kitchen. We’ve been to people’s houses, to the high-rise in the periphery, and to grey and black markets where they sold things from Chinese imports to machetes to live owls and raccoons. Impressive.
Agata: I think the biggest lesson we learned from Russia is how it is incredibly advanced in some ways but also backwards at the same time. The way people cope, and at times thrive, is a model that countries in the West dealing with uncertain times can learn from.
And the last question is about Russian soul, of course. There are lots of speculations about this ‘mystical’ thing. Do you have something to say about it based on your experience of Russia?
Daniel: You can keep talking about it, you may approach it – but you can never quite grasp it. I found here, in Russia, a deep and sometimes black humor. No conversation has passed without at least five jokes and anecdotes. This coexistence of optimism and cynicism is very interesting and it does have the literary quality that Renny pointed at in the very beginning of this project. I would say that we don’t see this in the West and I wouldn’t say I understand it yet – I’m not sure if I ever can. I’m thankful for this week, and invite you to look at the outcomes in May 2011.
Text by Vidafine.
“Reality isn’t static anymore. It’s not a set of ideas you either have to fight or resign yourself to. It’s made up, in part, of ideas that are expected to grow as you grow, and as we all grow, century after century.” – Robert M. Pirsig, Zen: The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,1974 , as referenced by Renny Ramakers, Co-founder and Director of Droog.
Recently, we introduced you to Droog, a conceptual design company located in Amsterdam. We mentioned the various facets of the company and how the Droog Lab is quickly becoming a globally known research hub that brings relevant solutions to its clients, and people of the world. Many of us live life hoping to one day start something that we can call our own. Few, actually go ahead and do it. After learning about Droog, I was particularly interested in the projects that this company is currently involved in, and was estatic when Co-founder and Director of Droog, Renny Ramakers, agreed to chat with us about her beginnings and her vision for the future of Droog.
idafine: After some research, we discovered that you have a history background. How did you transition into global design from what you studied in school? What drew you to this particular industry?
Renny: After studying art history I reached a point in which I wanted to impact it. Art history gave me broad perspective and critical rigour that I combined with my ability to sense what is going on at the present. Together with the Co-founder of Droog, Gijs Bakker, we noticed a movement that some designers in the Netherlands were pioneering. We gave it a title and a presence that took off, and eventually became global.
Vidafine: Knowing about the past and how things ‘used to be’ definitely can drive someone to initiate change for the future. What is your ultimate goal for Droog?
Renny: I am quite ambitious and we have many plans… I started Droog because I found it necessary to present a new spirit in design. At that time this new spirit was based on a conceptual approach. Now, one can see this approach everywhere and as I feel it, it is time for new impulses. That’s why I started the Lab. But we are also trying other directions, and are working on other models. For instance, our presentation this past April in Milan, Saved by Droog, has opened up a new way of working (by treating unwanted products as raw material for product development) and we want to continue on this path. Ultimately, I want to express that Droog is not a design collective but a company. Our company is content driven but it also wants to make profit.
Vidafine: Founding your own company is definitely a lifetime milestone. What’s your most memorable moment as Co-founder and Director of Droog? Continue reading “Vidafine interviews Renny Ramakers”
Here is the DAMN’s lead on the story about design in the Middle East featuring Droog al Arab:
Thank you Vidafine for this article on the latest activities in the Droog Lab:
Since 1993, Droog has been a budding conceptual design company that has helped Dutch design gain international recognition. They create in a way that is fresh (sometimes unusual), down to earth and iconic, with the ultimate goal of changing the way people think about their surroundings (which is what we obviously love about them here at Vidafine). Headquartered in Amsterdam under the distinctive eye of Renny Ramakers, their main office operates out of the Netherlands just above their store, while another store has sprouted in New York in 2008. In addition to designing clever products, one of the latest initiatives of this company is their Lab. The Droog Lab is definitely something worth talking about as it aims to bring together the creative design talents of the team with global issues that require further investigation.
“The Droog lab is free, unrestricted and exploratory, yet has a very ambitious mission: to define the next generation of global design. The Lab identifies urgencies on a global level and investigates them locally, with local partners, consulting experts, and known and unknown designers.The aim is to generate outcomes that have relevance on a global level.” In other words, they believe the next generation of global design will focus on responding to contemporary issues, investigated locally, but then translated to an outcome that has value for contemporary society in general. They believe that one way to understand what’s happening around us and to gain new inspiration for design is to visit foreign places with an outsider’s perspective, be present, engage with others and collaborate.
Two projects that I found particularly interesting was Luxury of the North and Droog al Arab, projects which speak directly to what we have been sharing with you at Vidafine about Back to Basics and Community.
As of late, you may have come to realize Dubai has developed into a hub for innovation, luxury design and architecture. Ambitious to gain global recognition, their rapid growth in development seems to have slowed down, and their stability for the future may be at risk as detailed in Arabian Business. In partnership with design gallery Traffic, Droog stepped in to see how they can learn and gain inspiration from Dubai to create a new model for future developments, not only for Dubai but for elsewhere as well. Taking their ambitions as a design company, combined with social intelligence gained from their visit to Dubai and the idea of collaborative creation, a plan was born. Having started the project in May of 2009, it took one full year for the investigation to be complete. The result? An online platform of collaborative content where leading designers can invite emerging designers to contribute their ideas and skills and ultimately work together. You can read more details of the project results here.
Luxury of the North
The second project is definitely near and dear but still in progress. Luxury of the North is a project that took place in Canada’s Pond Inlet in partnership with the University of Alberta’s Principal Investigator Tim Antoniuk, who spoke at TEDxEdmonton recently. With travel becoming more of a commodity rather than a luxury in the Western world, the North, just doesn’t seem too far out of reach anymore. Further studies about the North also remind us about issues of global warming happening right before our eyes. Most dramatically affecting the North, melting ice has hindered on the lives of many including humans and animals up north, but it also has opened up trade routes to the North that never used to exist. Through this Lab project, the team at Droog is looking at how Canada’s Northern ‘extreme conditions’ and intense negotiation with change can inspire a new way of living in contemporary cities elsewhere. They are investigating how the North deals with its resources and how it deals with its ancestry might inspire our future. Spending about 10-12 days on site this past June, speaking with locals and the Nunavut government as well as interacting with wildlife and the majestic surroundings of the North, results of their findings will be presented in Toronto in early 2011. You can learn more about the progression of the project here.
Droog has truly demonstrated their ideas for change and their plans for execution. I’m excited to hear about their findings and their strategies of introducing their discoveries to the world! I hope Droog can keep us up to date! If you are from the European Union area, and are interested in what they do, I’m happy to say that they are currently looking for interns for September 2010. Perhaps you can send your application in and who knows, you may be involved in their next big project!
The Sucker, the handy hook that sucks itself onto any smooth surface, now comes in fresh new packaging.
It is available online and at Droog Amsterdam, and soon at Droog New York and resellers worldwide.
Our Luxury of the North team recently returned from an unforgettable trip to the Canadian Arctic. Here are some impressions of our trip.
Leading designers Winy Maas and Cynthia Hathaway.
Just in time before the ice melts!
A taste of seal.
Here’s the rest of the team. You can read more about the project here.
