Established and Son’s space on Via Palermo looks like a beaver damn captured mid-explosion. Making our way through the maze-like construction we enter a doctor Seuss world of antennas springing out of chubby drawers, carried by spiderish legs, to talk to Maarten Baas, standing casually draping a Baas branded bag over his arm. It feels like entering an alien world, and the aliens are the furniture.
His process from thought to object seems unswerving and mostly unpolluted. Maarten describes his drawing process as “5 minutes then that’s it” as he and his partner work from these sketches to a finished product. He manages to translate his ideas directly from his imagination into tangible products, which allows the work to possess an honesty which is often lost through endless computer renderings and manufacturing limitations. He also seems to move beyond practical constraints and whilst some may see his collections as impractical, using his chest of drawers feels as mystifying as using a chest of drawers for the first time. This almost child-like aesthetic feels like walking into a cartoon. This creates the effect of an almost unrealistic reality created through his seemingly spontaneous design process.
Baas is launching a range of 12 black and white chairs which play with ideas of mass production. He is used to making short runs of products and whilst each of these chairs appears very similar at first glance, they all exhibit various “deformities” or variations from the norm. They seem captured in a state of flux and instability, almost as if extracted from someone’s imagination, not quite sure of how they should appear in the outside world.
Maarten Baas is in a fortunate position for a designer. He has the means and the popularity to be able to make what he feels like. With modern design dictated by user group analysis and production budgets, can designers truly satisfy their creativity and make exactly what they want?
Design is a compromise in many ways. It is a compromise of limitations and the need to sell products and compromise can often lead to mediocrity. To create design based on finding a middle ground and averages makes sense and is safe as it helps avoid too much subjectivity. However, to be truly self indulgent and hope people understand you is risky, but some designers hold this enviable position and Maarten Baas is one of them. He describes how he never thinks in terms of a target group. “I just make what I really would like and I think there are more people like me so I think there are more people who would like this stuff”
Text & Image : David Wilson