About Ahrend
The Dutch office-furnishings manufacturer Royal Ahrend produced the exhibition Behind the Scene #01 as an accompaniment to the presentation of its own collection of furniture during the 2006 Salone del Mobile in Milan.
Ahrend came of age in the 1930s and the postwar period, in a time when efficient systems for the production and processing of information were rapidly developing. The company’s practice and culture took shape during the heyday of modernism, in which industrial design became important. The ‘simple’ goal was to improve the relationship between product and user with every design, preferably in a lasting way.
Society has undergone changes in many respects since then. In our time of abundance, products have taken on a different meaning. Hierarchically and efficiently controlled processes are giving way to networks. The complexity of current problems calls for a multidisciplinary approach to innovation.
With the facilitation of work as its core activity, Ahrend must be responsive to economic and sociocultural developments. The company therefore seeks to delve into these developments and grasp their essential significance, in order to translate them into quality products and services.
For more information please visit www.ahrend.com.
Interview:
Growth Rings
Friso Kramer, Boomstoel (Tree Chair)
Friso Kramer may be advancing in years, but when he talks about his work you quickly forget it. He speaks with great enthusiasm about the ... "In the 1970s we strongly believed that good design is socially conscious design. I'm still convinced of that."
Friso Kramer "A designer makes something because the time or the object demands it."
Friso Kramer
Interview:
A Bench with a Heart
Ineke Hans, Herinneringsbank (Memory Bench)
During her master’s course in furniture design at London’s Royal College of Art, she was discovered by the store chain Habitat. She worked ...
Interview:
Making It as a Team
Jeroen Verhoeven/Demakersvan, Industrialized Wood
Imagine being fresh out of art school and selling your work to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a firm of architects in Los Angeles, a ... "We have to see to it that machines start working for us again, instead of allowing ourselves to be led by them."
Jeroen Verhoeven, Demakersvan "We want to aesthetically educate the average person. That’s why we’re looking at producing in India."
Jeroen Verhoeven, Demakersvan "You have to make comfortable things. Not philosophical treatises – just comfortable, sellable furniture."
Ineke Hans "The playground was bleak, but inside the school there was a sultry atmosphere. The contrast led me to the 18th century."
Ineke Hans
about us:
Behind the Scene #01
This website was launched in conjunction with the exhibition Behind the Scene #01, held 5-10 April 2006, during the 2006 Salone Internazionale ...
Interview:
Looking on the Dark Side
Brigitte Hendrix (...and beyond), ‘Something Here Feels Horribly Wrong’
The colourful streets of Amsterdam are a laboratory for fashion designer Brigitte Hendrix, 27. Her collection ominously entitled ‘Something ...
Project:
Industrialized Wood, Jeroen Verhoeven/Demakersvan
Jeroen Verhoeven of Demakersvan used drawings of seventeenth-century furniture to make his Industrialized Wood table. He converted different ...
Project:
Milk Project, Esther Polak & Ieva Auzina with RIXC, Riga Centre for New Media Culture
When artist Esther Polak and researcher Ieva Auzina discovered that much Latvian milk is transported to the Netherlands, they decided to follow ...
Project:
Roots of the Rúntur, Rob Hornstra
The introduction of fishing quotas has greatly changed Iceland. The young people there no longer wish to work in the fishing industry and are ...
Interview:
Fast Forward
Ivan Kasner, Petrifying
Starting off your design career with objects that can last tens of thousands of years: that was Ivan Kasner's daring choice for his graduation ...