Dutch designer Maarten Baas was born on 19 February 1978 in Arnsberg, Germany, but moved to The Netherlands in 1979 where he grew up. Upon graduating from high school in 1995 he began his studies at the prestigious Design Academy Eindhoven. Baas designed the candleholder Knuckle, which was taken into production by Pols’ Potten, while he was still studying. In 2000 he studied for several months at the Politecnico di Milano, in Milan.

In June 2002 he graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven with two concepts. One of them being the now famous and generally known Smoke series, for which Baas charred furniture and treated the torched skeletons with a coating, turning them into useable pieces of furniture again.

Three of these Smoke pieces became part of the collection of Marcel Wanders’ international design label Moooi, who launched them during the Salone del Mobile in 2003, where they were welcomed with applause. This sensation was followed by a solo-show at Moss gallery in New York, one year later, where the Smoke series were expanded by design classics from the 20th century, including pieces by Rietveld, Eames, Gaudi and Sottsass. Soon the Smoke collection was considered by museums, critics, collectors and the design public as an iconical collection of modern design and Smoke has been taken into several permanent collections of influential museums around the world (a.o Victoria & Albert Museum, Groninger Museum, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts).

In 2005 Baas began collaborating with Bas den Herder, who is now responsible for the production and development of almost all of Maarten Baas’s designs. The founding of studio Baas & den Herder made it possible to further work out Maarten’s unique, handmade pieces and to produce them on a larger scale. This new collaboration also allows Baas to take on even more ambitious projects for  hotels, restaurants, galleries, museums and private commissioners from all over the world.

Maarten approaches design without knowledge of, or care for, predisposed boundaries and finds his cause in undertaking new experiments. This method of approach was further strengthened for his exhibition at the Salone del Mobile 2005, where he unveiled his ‘Treasure Furniture’, ‘Hey, chair, be a bookshelf!’ and ‘Flatpack Furniture’ which where yet again received with great anticipation and critical acclaim, and meanwhile have been taking into several collections (a.o. Los Angeles Museum for Modern Art, FNAC, Indianapolis Museum of Art).

In the same year, Maarten collaborated with Ian Schrager’s design team on the new Gramercy Park Hotel. Baas supplied diverse, specialy made Smoke pieces for the rooms and the lobby of the hotel.

During the Salone del Mobile in 2006 Maarten presented Clay Furniture, which was immediately recognized as the natural successor to Smoke and was ultimately one of the most surprising projects unveiled at the festival. In that same year the Design Museum in London displayed 18 pieces from the Clay collection. Besides the Design Museum, several other museums showed interest in Clay and the piece was taken into the collections of a.o. the Röhsska Museet Göteborg, the Groninger Museum en the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Baas continued his work by launching other, bespoken collections in the following years, during the Salone del Mobile, such as Sculpt in 2007.

One year later, in 2008, his rough and authentic presentation with a selection of both old and new work, was the most talked about exhibition in Milan. Here, he showed, a.o. the Plastic Chair in Wood, that was part of the solo-exhibition The Shanghai Riddle with Contrasts Gallery, Shanghai, later that year. At the same time, in Milan, prototypes of the controversial, Limited Edition series The Chankley Bore where shown with the international label Established & Sons. In October, the series was presented in London during the Frieze Art Fair.

In 2009 Baas designed, for the first time since his collaboration with Moooi in 2003, unlimited pieces for other labels. For the new, Italian label Skitsch, he developed the cartooneskly shaped, porcelain tableware The Haphazard Harmony. And for the British Established & Sons the dining chair Standard Unique, a chair that is constructed in such a way that each produced part brings in a unique chair.

The revolutionary concept Real Time (2009), brought a new dimension to Baas’s work. By filming actors that, indicate the time by hand every minute during 12 hours, these films can function as a clock. The work was purchased immediately by the Rijksmuseum and still in the same year by a.o. the Philip Johnson Glass House and the Zuiderzeemuseum, with whom a close collaboration came into existence.

Real Time is a distinctive example of Maarten Baas’s work, which cannot be categorised easily. While many debate about, if this work is art or design, Baas does not bother himself with this question, but only with his work, with which he obtained a unique position in a very short amount of time. With private commissions for a.o. Adam Lindemann, Brad Pitt, Fabio Novembre, Ian Schrager, Li Edelkoort en Michael Ovitz, collaborations with companies such as Morgane Hotel Group and Dom Ruinart, galleries such as Galleria Rossana Orlandi (Milan), Cibone (Tokyo), Moss (NY) and many museums.
At the end of 2009, Baas will, as by far the youngest designer ever, during Design Miami/ be awarded as Designer of the Year.

Maarten Baas lives and works on a farm in the countryside near ‘s Hertogenbosch.

Links:

www.maartenbaas.com

Click here to return to the main page of the competition.