Joyful Relations

By - 11 January 2010

Marcel Wanders is a big man, outgoing and enthusiastic. Paradoxically, his most extraordinary creations are delicate and light, resembling embroidery or fretwork: small cube tables in resin-soaked lace, a knotted rope chair stiffened with epoxy resin or a small, low, metal table with an openwork floral top. In 2001, he created (for Flos) “BLO”, a candle-shaped bedside lamp complete with loop handle that turns itself off when you blow on it. For Rosenthal he designed a sponge/vase impregnating a real sea sponge with kaolin. Wanders first came to public notice while at Droog Design, the Dutch foundation led by Renny Ramkers and Gijs Bakker, where he produced some striking projects including an armchair made of two large wicker baskets and a table lamp comprising a series of stacked lampshades. Wanders now works independently as Art Director of the small Dutch company Moooi and collaborates with important Italian companies like Flos, Cappellini, Boffi and Mandarina Duck. For this latter, he developed a plastic fabric bag obtained by an insufflation technology somewhat similar to Murano blown glass. His name is also on new porcelain tableware by Royal Tichelaar Makkun, Holland’s oldest porcelain manufacturer. Approached by this company that started production in 1594, Wanders produced a lively contamination of traditional shapes and a variegated series of modern decorations in brilliant colours. We owe the non-matching dinner service to Marcel Wanders.
Behind all his work is a preoccupation to solve the conflict between nature and technology and find new ways of blending the natural and artificial. For Wanders, the conflict is unsolvable. His answer has been to make technology into a sort of second, friendly nature, and nature into a source of energy to change the world around us. As a result, his use of even the most advanced technology, of which he has a thorough knowledge, does not kill natural elements, rather exalts their naturalness, lending them seemingly...