Ambitions, views, collaborations
Text: Louise Schouwenberg
'A ROOM WITH A VIEW’ – few book titles appeal to the imagination as this one does, by the British author E.M. Forster (written in 1908, made into a film in 1985). The story largely takes place in a pensione in Florence, Italy, where a group of wealthy Britons is staying. After two of the main characters complain about the lack of views from their room, they are offered a room with a view. This room with a view recurs throughout the book and plays an important role.
The room without a view symbolises conservatism, narrow-mindedness and suppressed feelings, a phenomenon characteristic of the Victorian age. By contrast, the broad view from the new room is associated with openness and progressive values.
When Anne Mieke Eggenkamp and Alexander van Slobbe decided to rent an apartment specifically for the academy in early 2009, they explicitly looked for a ‘room with a view’. The space should offer a broad view, and not just literally; it also had to symbolise an open view towards the future.
THE WHITE LADY BUILDING
Shortly after Alexander van Slobbe was appointed artistic director for Design Academy Eindhoven in 2009, he made a set of proposals for an “improved working and meeting atmosphere”. In his opinion, the White Lady Building was an “ivory tower” and “too formal a lady, with her oversized spaces which are completely unsuitable for holding inspiring meetings”. On the one hand he wanted more attention for work produced by former students. And on the other hand he came up with the suggestion to find a multifunctional space that would be suitable for organising brainstorm sessions in a more intimate setting. Anne Mieke Eggenkamp was also feeling an increasing need to find a comfortable space for a range of administrative consultations, so she agreed with his suggestions. Together they began making plans. The spaces inside the White Lady would gradually start displaying more work by former students, so that the building’s interior would, as it were, be suffused with the school’s creativity. In addition, they would find a room where the new administration would be able to literally open the windows, leave the inheritance of their predecessors behind, and plot a new course for the academy. This new space would facilitate meetings and consultations. At the same time it would serve as a guest house for the academy management and (inter)national guests. It proved impossible to create such a multifunctional, homelike context within the academy, which is why they looked beyond – and found it. 1)
Since May 2009, DAE has been renting a space measuring 120 m2 in the 28-storey apartment building ‘the Admirant’. Because the apartment is set on the 18th floor and has such tall windows, it offers a magnificent view over the city of Eindhoven and the surrounding Brabant countryside. It is, in every way, a room with a view.
DUTCH DESIGN
Once the basic conditions had been met, someone had to draw up a decent plan for the interiors which had to be based on a clear vision. Design Academy Eindhoven is a prestigious school of design that annually produces young designers whose innovative, creative, relevant, essential and beautiful designs enrich the world.
According to Eggenkamp and Van Slobbe, the environment in which these designs land holds a great many challenges for designers, such as the need to spare the environment any unsound materials, the demand of creating intense relationships between people and their products, and the need to collaborate with a range of businesses and experts from other disciplines. To prepare them, the school should, more so than before, devote a great deal of attention to highquality and sustainable production techniques, and to creative forms of collaboration. The apartment’s interior was to reflect this ambition. Eggenkamp: “At the same time, we also wanted the apartment to be practical and comfortable. The house had to make sense as a home.
The interior could not become a display of great numbers of things, but should first and foremost guarantee a good experience.” Van Slobbe: “We wanted to show what Dutch design has accomplished over the past 60, 70 years and were therefore only going to work with Dutch companies and Dutch designers or people who had studied here and then stayed on. It was to become a Mecca of Dutch design that would immediately impress our foreign guests.”
THE APARTMENT
Designer and stylist Thomas Eurlings, a former student at the Man and Identity department, was commissioned in March 2009 to find Dutch manufacturers and designers that would be a match for the new management’s vision. And he was to supervise the interior decoration process that would follow. Eurlings: “First I made some visual descriptions of the rooms, describing the type of atmosphere we were looking for in the different rooms. We decided, for instance, that we would furnish one bedroom in a ‘feminine’ way and the other in a ‘masculine’ style. Then I started looking for the materials and products that would fit in with these atmospheric visuals.” The list of manufacturers naturally featured the ‘Friends of the Academy’, but in addition, Eurlings also sought out top firms that were not (yet) Friends. They would be approached for the execution of things such as floor coverings, walls, the kitchen, and bed linens. And Eurlings made a list of products and furniture by designers that he thought would fit within the chosen interior. In consultation with the management he brought down this longlist to a tentative shortlist, after which he contacted the manufacturers and designers from the shortlist to see if they would be interested in participating in the project, for instance, through sponsoring. Almost all of them, manufacturers and designers, responded with great eagerness. From the experimental floors to the luxury carpets and new doors, from the well-equipped kitchen to the functional chairs and tables, the vases and the tableware: a broad range of essentially Dutch companies and important designers have contributed to the interiors of the DAE-apartment.
The apartment has been in use since May 2010. Eggenkamp: “Anyone who enters the apartment is immediately struck by the spectacular view, the sky. They do not notice the interior until after that. Good design is all about context. Here, this context is literally present, because the city and the surrounding landscape are so overwhelmingly visible. But within the apartment, too, the main thing we have done was create a context. The place has not turned into a showroom for pieces that demand full attention; the items are only relevant insofar as they are used. You enter, and immediately feel that this is a good place to be. Even a person who is not in the profession and does not know about design, will feel that this place is right. After all, it appeals to all the senses.”
SLICE OF DUTCH DESIGN
Eurlings believed visitors to the apartment should get an immediate sense of what Dutch design represents, without feeling the need for an explanation. So the most important things were the overall experience and liveability. This is why he did not try to give every important Dutch designer and every important manufacturer a platform in the apartment. So those who were hoping to find every famous Dutch design here will notice a few names missing.
Van Slobbe says he regrets not seeing some of the important names when the apartment was opened. And he thinks it is a pity that most of the items are new. “The biggest danger in a new apartment is the sense of entering the home of a newlywed couple. I thought it was important that we would have old and used items by designers such as Benno Premsela and Friso Kramer, not the recent editions. Or that there would be a carpet with some wear and tear, as if it had been lying there for a while. But that is just hindsight. I think the apartment has turned out very well, even though we have not realised all our plans.” Eggenkamp and Eurlings stress that it was never their intention to give a complete overview of the designers who have made Dutch design famous. Eggenkamp: “We simply did not have the means to do so. And more importantly, over the coming period, the academy itself will be making the relevance of Dutch design much more visible. The apartment is relatively small, so you cannot stuff it full of items. You have to be able to breathe in it, work there, be there. But within the academy building we have more room for designs that have been just as important for the history of Dutch design.” Eurlings: “We have focused mainly on achieving a good sense of balance within the apartment. All our choices have been based on this idea. More importantly, the apartment will never be finished. I can imagine all sorts of things being added over time. And I can see us realising a few plans that we have not yet come round to. We have, for instance, talked about placing a bookcase and filling it with publications on Dutch designers, translated Dutch books, and Dutch films with English subtitles, to give foreign guests some more information about Dutch culture. We can easily make such a plan work.”
LOCAL QUALITIES
The care with which the items in the apartment have been produced and finished is a reflection of the attention devoted in the school curriculum to highquality and sustainable production techniques. Eggenkamp: “We often do not realise the wide range of different qualities actually surrounding us. Dutch manufacturers and designers possess an incredible amount of expertise. We thought it was important that the apartment would, as it were, open people’s eyes to this. This year, the school has been in this city for 65 years. The DNA of the region has become intertwined with the school. This apartment can help us discover that DNA.” Van Slobbe: “It is not just better for the environment to work with local companies as much as we can, keeping the lines of transport as short as possible, but what I find much more important is this: Dutch heritage deserves to be preserved for future generations. The Netherlands has produced so many good designers, and then there are all these wonderful manufacturing firms that can hardly keep their heads above water because of the competition from cheap labour countries. When you look at the qualities they have to offer it becomes clear that it would be a crying shame if some of these techniques and forms and decorations were to disappear. They hold countless associations for us; we have grown up with them! This is why I think it is important that we take a fresh look at all of these qualities from our own history and support the companies involved in them. People will develop more intense relationships with their things when there is some form of recognition, for example because certain shapes, patterns and techniques are rooted in their own tradition. Sometimes these can be labour-intensive production techniques, which will therefore lead to more expensive products. I call this the New Luxury: we should consume less, but the things we buy must be of better quality. And you will not find better quality on the other side of the world, but close to home.”
THE PUBLICATION
“The total sum of our conscious choices makes a statement about design”, says Eggenkamp. “What can be the significance of design, what role do products play in our lives, how can they contribute to our quality of life.”
She believes this statement is present in the choice for a space that offers a broad view of the surroundings, but also in the choice for a functional, comfortable, and open interior. It is present, too, in the choice for local manufacturers and high-quality production processes. “Although many of the items are not modest in themselves, they do play a modest role, mainly because they fit together so seamlessly. It makes you experience the power and relevance of design. The apartment helps raise awareness, for instance about the importance of a sound execution. At the same time, to me the apartment also symbolises where collaboration can lead. The stories behind the products, the process, the way things have come about, the people who have been involved.
All of these things help determine the quality in the end, and you can feel it. This is something that goes beyond the design itself. Over the past 20 years, manufacturers have become much more open towards experimental collaborations with young designers. The strategic courses of many of these companies are increasingly allowing for the research of design students and designers to be taken on board during development. The apartment displays something of the mentality that has made Dutch design great, and it represents multiple stories about sensible crossovers and fertile collaborations with others.”
A publication about an apartment. How can we capture the atmosphere, the experience of the space? How can we communicate a room with a view and the importance of the process through photography? After all, not everyone will have access to the apartment itself. We have asked photographers Johannes Schwartz and Taco van der Werf to take photographs that would depict the atmosphere, and not the usual collection of items in a room. According to Eggenkamp, they have managed to capture the atmosphere in the apartment fantastically well in a series of serene images that appeal to the imagination. For just a moment, the viewer can imagine being inside the apartment, walking around in it, experiencing the rooms and their effect. DAE is the originator of both the apartment and of this publication. “Both of them implicitly say: this is what our school is all about.”
1) Van Slobbe left the Academy prematurely in June 2009,
because he was unable to combine his position as artistic
director with his own artistic practice. This meant that his
involvement in the plans for the apartment was limited to the
first few months.