Dutch design : a history

274 Pages·2008·13.577 MB·English

by  Mienke Simon Thomas

spine
19mm
(c)
‘This is what we’ve been waiting for: finally, an unprecedented D DUTCH DESIGN
critical analysis of the history of Dutch design. Mienke Simon U
Thomas’s Dutch Designis a book to have andto read: an important
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and richly detailed study of the cultural, economical and social- A History
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political context of twentieth-century design in the Netherlands.’
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—Wim Crouwel

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From the colourful abstraction of the Rietveld chair to the dry wit of the ‘milkbottle
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lamp’ produced by Droog, modern design in the Netherlands has always been a
hotbed of experimentation. Dutch designers have consistently pushed the limits in I
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everything from posters to postage stamps, home furnishings to street signage,
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ceramics to city airports. Indeed, in the last decade or so, Dutch design has become a
worldwide phenomenon, almost a brand in itself, with regular publications in magazines
and books promoting the remarkable creative output of this small country. A
This book takes an in-depth look not just at Dutch designs themselves but also
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the history and culture behind the works created throughout the twentieth century
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and beyond. Mienke Simon Thomas provides a compelling thematic account,
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guiding the reader through the beginnings of crafts education, the debates of design
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as art, the moral and social ideals of modernism, the new profession of industrial
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designer, state-sponsored initiatives, and conceptual design objects and ‘anti-design’.
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She argues that Dutch design seems to have been inspired by the wish to be
functional,simple and affordable, but she also reveals how it has simultaneously Y
embraced luxury, decoration and even exclusivity.
A much-needed introduction to Dutch designs and their creators – as well as the
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clients who commissioned them and the state initiatives that supported them – this
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e
book will be essential reading for designers, historians and the general public with an
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interest in design. k
e
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with 171illustrations, 83in colour im
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mienke simon thomasis Senior Curator in the Department of Decorative Arts T
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and Design at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and the author o
of Dutch Ceramics, 1890–1940(2002). m
a
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Cover: Tejo Remy (Droog Design), ‘You Can’t Lay Down Your Memory’, design
chest of drawers, 1991. Photo: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
reaktion books ltd
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk uk£17.95rrp/us$35.00 Mienke Simon Thomas

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Dutch Design
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001_005_Dutch Des_prelims:001_005_Des.Mod_prelims 20/8/08 12:43 Page 3
Dutch Design
A History
Mienke Simon Thomas

reaktion books
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Published by Reaktion Books Ltd
33Great Sutton Street
London ec1v 0dx, uk
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk
First published 2008
Copyright © Mienke Simon Thomas2008
This translation was supported by grants from The Prince Bernard Fund and
The Mondriaan Foundation.
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of
the publishers.
Printed in China
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Simon Thomas, Mienke
Dutch design: a history
1. Design, Industrial – Netherlands
I. Title
745.2’09492
isbn–13: 978 1 86189 380 2
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Contents
Introduction 7
1 New Art, Old Craft, 1875–1915 13
2 Design as Art, 1915–40 49
3 Good Design, 1925–65 89
4 Design as Profession, 1945–80 133
5 Design for Debate, 1960s to the Present 183
Conclusion 237
References 241
Bibliography 256
Acknowledgements 261
Photo Acknowledgements 262

Index 263
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Studio Mijksenaar,
visual statistics in the
TNOReport Design in
the Creative Economy
(Vormgeving in de
Creatieve Economie),for
Premsela and the Ministry
of Economic Affairs, 2005.
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Introduction
In 2001the Dutch government set up an Interim Advisory Committee on
Dutch design to map out the infrastructure of design culture. The aim was
to use this information as a basis from which it would be possible to make
more specific recommendations on design policy in the future. The com-
mittee advocated more ‘synergy’ between the social, cultural and economic
sectors involved in design, and the establishment of a new design institute
that could offer guidance. It reasoned that the Netherlands has always
enjoyed a design tradition in which great attention has been paid to social
ideals and cultural values, but less to economic concerns. Four years later,
in 2005, the last hypothesis was put to the test by the information research
group tno, which needed to know the precise importance of design as part
of the creative economy. This exhaustive study produced remarkable
results: the astonishing conclusion was that, when grouped together, Dutch

designers were as important to the national economy as the profits accrued
from air transport or the petroleum industry.1This made a very surprising
outcome indeed if we consider the prevailing image of the ‘thrifty’ Dutch –
with their supposed lack of ostentation and small-scale production system.
The way these two reports came about invited criticism. First, the
Advisory Committee set up in 2001was composed entirely of people from
the cultural scene, who had a limited knowledge of economic affairs. In
2005, on the other hand, professional flower arrangers were assessed in the
tnostudy alongside industrial designers – a mismatch that many saw as
detracting from the validity of the conclusions. In short, a scholarly, value-
free analysis of design culture is an extremely difficult task, even using the
most modern research methods. These reports proved that an assessment
of the design sector depends to a large degree on the perspective, aims and
7
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sources at the researcher’s disposal. This was no different in the past. There
was, for example, a hidden agenda in 1878when the senior official of the
Ministry for Home Affairs, Jonkheer Victor de Stuers, and the State Commis-
sion he installed were asked to judge the state of the Dutch art industry.2
The same held true in 1945for the designers Piet Zwart and Paul Schuitema,
who had just as many predetermined motives when they drew up their
report on the future of industrial design in the Netherlands.3
These examples show that writing a historical survey of Dutch design
culture can be a hazardous undertaking. The primary sources at our dis -
posal usually throw light on just one side of the story. Even the secondary
literature still in existence has its limitations, since until now design histo-
ry in the Netherlands has mainly been the province of art and architectural
historians. It is only natural that they have mainly described the history of
design from an art–stylistic perspective. Only a small number of studies has
approached design from a different angle, by, for instance, taking an inter-
est in economic, sociological and political-philosophical views.4
In this book the central focus is on Dutch design culture in the twenti-
eth century. This means that our attention will be fixed primarily on the
cultural, economic and political-social context of design, and only in the
second instance on the products and designers that figure within these
realms. The main theme is the development of design in modern Dutch
society. We shall look at the relationship between designers and manufac-
turers, at the artistic and moral mission designers thought they had to
proselytize in the discussions they held on the subject in their specialist
journals. The content and organization of the design academy courses will
also come up for discussion, as well as the role of the Dutch government in
providing subsidies and commissioning work from designers. Finally, we

shall examine design criticism and – to a certain extent – the Dutch con-
sumer’s opinion about design.
The subject will be divided up into five themes that cover the subjects
or issues that were foremost in people’s minds when thinking about design,
and as such provided the ideological framework within which designers
carried out their work. The main thrust of these themes occurs in different
eras and by dealing with them in chronological order we shall cover the
entire century.
The first chapter addresses the theme of artisanal design, an issue that
was of central importance at the beginning of the twentieth century, but
crops up again regularly afterwards. In this chapter we shall discuss the
strange paradox that during this period, despite increased industrializa-
tion, the interest of Dutch designers (then still called decorative artists) was
8 Dutch Design