Lifestyle according to Piet Hein Eek

Piet Hein Eek has made a bold move, he has saved an old industrial heritage Philips building from demolition AND opened his own lifestyle shop. The old industrial entourage perfectly fits Piet Hein Eeks style and ambitions. Here he can house his production facility, his own shop and a cafe plus rent out spaces for other creatives as a sort of mecenas for young and up-coming talent, all under one roof. This is promising to become the new creative hot-spot, shopping and get-together space of Eindhoven.
Brilliant extension of the brand Piet Hein Eek from being furniture being made by himself primarily from old reclaimed wood to a space housing like-minded people and products, all hand-selected by himself. The idea of bringing production close to the sales is also interesting and very much in-touch with the spirit of the time, the designer is as much the craftsman and it's the person that comes with an idea. And the idea of local produce is appealing in these times of outsourcing and China being the factory of the world, it's a welcome and refreshing change, to be able to walk through this space and seeing where stuff is actually being made. It bring the making and the selling closer to each other, and creates a realistic picture in the mind of the consumer of how things are being made. New simplicity.

Piet Hein Eek lifestyle shop - ceramics and tableware

Piet Hein Eek lifestyle shop - lamps

Piet Hein Eek lifestyle shop

Piet Hein Eek lifestyle shop

Piet Hein Eek Lifestyle Cafe

Hosting Dirk van der Kooij - Endless chair

Philips industrial heritage

Muts Have

For the first time I'm tempted to write in Dutch. The Zeeman Muts Have Event was for Mutsen. For the Woolly Headed. For the Knotty. I had had the faint hope that Zeeman was smartening up, lately they have been up to stuff that had mislead me into thinking they where trying to become hip. Trying really hard to become the next Dirk. Or maybe even Hema. But no.

Goodiebag; one energydrink, two rolls of yarn, one set of knitting needles

We where welcomed by Nikkie, the best dressed woman in Netherlands, host of the event. First on stage is an English speaking guy who made the crowd spin a grand shawl by trowing yellow and blue balls of yarn through the air. That was actually quite a beautiful act of collaboration, the threads created a cob-web as big as the audience itself, eventually the audience lifted it up and rolled it up forwards to the stage, where the guy picked it up and threw it around his neck. Then Mirjam Tegels entered the stage, she can knit faster than her own shadow, and is the undisputed Dutch champion of speed knitting. She gave a knitting-for-beginners course from the stage. The audience dived into their goodiebags and grabbed knitting needles and balls and started knitting. The idea was to set a world record in simultaneous knitting. It is currently held by the Sock Summit in Portland; 937 knitters. In Leidse Rijn we where 415, maybe just enough to set an European record? Mirjam kept feeding us knitting tips and tricks and telling anecdotes to keep up the good spirit during these 15 minutes. After all this hard work, the crowd was rewarded by some singing by the X-factor winner; Jaap, finishing it all off with some happy singing along.

The Crowd is weaving a big shawl. Beautiful

European record knitting, 415 people knitting 15 minutes

Zeeman completely missed the point that has made knitting so hot. The New Knitting is an act of rebellion against prejudice role-models and social injustice and of a fashion system that exploits it's workers in ways that sometimes verges on slave labor. it's a new sort of feminist movement where the housewife's medium (knitting) is used to raise social critique. It uses humor and the street as canvas i.e. creating social knitting grafitti so it seems that lighting palls and cold industrial bridges are cuddled up in cozy sweaters. The Zeeman did just the opposite it confirmed all prejudices against knitting as being a dull housewife's activity.

Besides Zeeman is very late in catching up. The first Dutch Stitch'n Bitch group was started15th Nov 2004 in Amsterdam. That's quite a while ago. That was when Knitting started getting really hot. Also I think that the effect of the day could have been of a more grand scale if it had been hooked up with the World wide knit in public day; 12th of June.

A mum and her 4 daughters. Proof that knitting is female powers that transcends generations

the hottest girls of the event, wearing soft and cuddly hats

I enjoyed the afternoon, but my intuition tells me that the Zeeman event heralds the beginning of the end of New Knitting. Unfortunately.

Pink Milk

Can you catch a dream? Can you distill an emotion? And how about drinking an elixir that is drenched with the collective state-of-mind of unknown strangers? 

All of the above is presented to you like pink mother-milk on Pink Ribbon night in Bergen-op-Zoom. Meike Ziegler demonstrates that a Creatual; creative ritual can help people to give painful memories a resting place, and create hope for the future.

A table full of old-fashioned milk bottles set the stage for the ritual. The bottles are labeled with i.e. love, respect, dream, hope, inspiration, future. In the middle of the table lies a pile of strokes of transparent paper. All participants are invited to write down a wish, an emotion, or something that simply strike them at that moment. Afterwards they immerse their stroke of paper in the milk, and they slowly see the letters, their dreams and emotions dissolve into the milk. As if their feelings had been condensed into this one statement and then unleashed and transformed into milk by emotional alchemy.

After everybody have done their confessions and have seen these transform into pink mother-milk, the collected mental revelations are served as a drink that literally contains emotions. Some people chose to drink hope, others to drink inspiration and yet others take a nip of the future.

This creatual is part of a series of emotional interventions that Meike has created at several occasions. The Creatual is always in the form of interactive artistic installations, the audience is invited to participate in a ritual that transforms their emotional state. For some this might be experienced as slightly provocative, and that is also part of the intention, because to open up it is necessary to break down barriers.

I think events like these are a sign of New Spirituality, we need to give meaning to the events that happen to us in life. In the recent past the church helped us with that, but with the increase in atheism people are looking for new ways to get to terms with life-changing events and find strength and hope to get on with their life.

Slow Coffee, a contradictio in terminis?

It seems a contradiction in terminis? How could coffee possibly be slow? Coffee has grown to be a symbol of a lifestyle in the fast lane. So when the quintessence of our fast living society becomes slow, is that a symbol of a whole society that is slowing down? One where the intimate and local creates a new sense of being and belonging?

Ever since I lived in Italy in the beginning of the nineties, have I sworn to espresso coffee. The Italian way. When I lived in London (also in the beginning of the nineties) I would go out of my way to find a decent cup of coffee. Later life got easier because the espresso hype caught up with me, and it seems espresso is now everywhere to be found; on my kitchen counter, in the kitchen of the office, and even when I visited Shanghai in 2008, there was an espresso bar at every corner. For a long time Star Bucks even had a cafe inside the Forbidden City in Beijing. It was closed in 2007. The world-master barrista of 2006 was Danish, Copenhagen and Stockholm has some of the finest coffee bars.

Coffee has gone through a number of loops of reinvention and upgrading since the beginning of the nineties. Much like in other gourmet categories like wine and cheese a whole army of connoisseurs, experts and barristas have popped out of nowhere, and have taught us about coffee; understanding the fine details leading to a perfect cup; how important freshly grind beans are, exactly which pressure is right, and about the importance of the origins, type and treatment of the beans. Starbucks even gives Coffee masterclasses in HongKong. Coffee is no longer confined to being the social lubricant @ home that it used to be, it is now a culinary experience best enjoyed in specialized coffee houses. Coffee is no longer a bitter drink for old folks, it's almost a cocktail, and Starbucks will make it any way you want it. Caffeine has gone from being evil, to being an excellent provider of anti-oxidants, which makes it almost healthy.

So now when espresso has finally established itself in the mindset of mr. Average, automatic espresso machines have penetrated into even the most provincial kitchens, then comes slow coffee and turns the world upside down. The new Slow Coffee is made with drip filters. Cup by cup. The freshly grind beans are given time to soak in boiling water, until all the fine essences are extracted, then it slowly drips into the cup. That brewing process becomes a slow ritual of waiting and contemplation. The cups are big like tea-mugs, which turns drinking into sipping and carefully tasting every mouthful, to discover all the layers of the flavors. 

Now when coffee has slowed down, will we all slow down?

The Village Coffee serving Slow Coffee @ opening Cris

The Village Coffee serving Slow Coffee @ opening Cris

The Village Coffee serving Slow Coffee @ opening Cris

The Village Coffee serving Slow Coffee @ opening Cris

De jongens van de koffee

Filterkoffie weer hip?

screamingbeans

thevillagecoffee

Self-service shopping

AKG has installed self-service vending machine on Schiphol. This invites for impulse last minute shopping just before take-off, containing all the accessories that you could imagine you would need for a long distance flight.

This looks more like a boutique vending machine it is is sleak, black a bit glam techy. the product is exposed in a setting that you looks more like a jewelery shop.

Cris

An institute of men’s fashion in the Netherlands has just opened his new shop at the Springweg in Utrecht. The street and the outside is as pretty as most of the old center in Utrecht. It doesn’t reveal anything of the industrial raw edges and glam decay that you find inside the shop. It looks like an abandoned building has been hijacked and covered with a eclectic perfect varnish, where decomposition seems to have been frozen, captured in this moment and stopped.

The space is vast, with a pleasant light bathed atrium in the middle. The floors have been stripped back to their most raw and primary state, it’s a patchwork of raw concrete, gravel filled cement and old planks. The simple bricks that are typically used for construction, lay uncovered; naked, brute and crude. The rawness and imperfections have been framed by perfect white walls and are being interrupted by perfectly geometrically shelving systems. The industrial feel is enhanced with simple uncovered fluorescent tubes in the ceiling, clothes are exhibited on iron carts painted in a subtle utilitarian camouflage green the only color that seems to have been used. Unpolished copper is highlighting details such as clothes racks, window frames and doorknobs of the change rooms. It is now already covered with fingerprints and with time it will continue to develop a varnish, and the parts that are outside will corrode into a beautiful green.

Men come from all over the Netherlands to shop at Cris, the careful selection of menswear reflects an eclectic urban casual style. The first Cris shop was opened in 1999.  The vision of Cris is described as honest advise, attention and care, small-scaled and authenticity. Cris puts emphasis on honest and approachable service; the atmosphere the personnel set in the shop is helpful and friendly it feels like a warm welcome.

The following brands are sold by Cris;

Menswear; Roberto Collina, Drykorn, Hope, Martin Margiela, Folk, Mauro Grifoni, Daniele Allessandrini. 

Shoes; Officine Creative, Moma, Superga. 

Bags; Corsia, Eastpak, DRKSHDW van Rick Owens

Cris Herenwinkel

Springweg 10

3511 VP Utrecht NL

Cris Outlet

Mariaplaats 3a

3511 LH Utrecht NL

www.cris.nu

Interior architect: Élise van Thuyne
Restoration: Spijkers met Koppen by Thijs Ravenhorst

Furniture by Johan

Metalwork by Staalstudio by Roland Manders

... in a world full of crooks

Just opposite the City Movies at the Drift somebody has taken the opportunity to paint a large graffiti on the plywood that encases the scaffolding of some rebuild project. The scaffolding has been used as a canvas to draft something that looks like a modern Western sketched up in comic book style. Not unfitting for a graffiti situated next to a cinema. The whole looks a bit too unplanned for it to be accidental, so the thought strikes me, that it's commissioned work by City Movies. Complete speculation from my side. Some pieces of the comic has been left as blank canvases, an invitation for other graffiti artists to play along and help complete the story. Maybe when this piece comes to it's end, we will discover who was behind it, and what the plan was.

the SUPER adventures of a normal kid

living in a dark grey world full of CROOKS

BUT... there is someone coming out a nothing... ACTION HERO

and he's bringing things in life like: ART, BURNRS

without ANYONE

and from... to..

The End

Black Pearl - White Space

Rolf has made an unconventional intervention to an old and dilapidated building (Charlois, Rotterdam) and thereby turned it into a architectural landmark. By juxtaposing old layers of meaning and history with new layers of intersected walls and texture he's creating an interior universe full of tension and surprise. Has he turned an unpolished diamond into a pearl?  

photography by frankhanswijk.nl

The old external structure has been left largely untouched, only all its internal construction was removed. This created a vast space (4 floors) into which a new structure has been inserted. The new structure is on the one hand created by a ribbon (of painted pine-wood laths) that runs through the space, it gives direction through the maze of fly-overs, undercuts and rooms. On the other hand the the new structure seems to be floating in space, it's detached and created completely independently from the old structure, sometimes the split is enhanced by dramatic embedded back-lighting. Some cut-throughs or fly-overs create dizzying heights and views so your sense of balance may also be challenged. In most places where old and new meet there is collision because there is no relationship. The stark white walls of the new frame the mixed textures of the old like one would a cherished memory of a dear one.

photography by Frankhanswijk.nl

Every time one turns a corner there is a new surprise in space, in dimension, in perspective and material. Artists like Gordon Matta Clarke experimented in the 70's to create interventions with a chain-saw on old buildings and ruins to create new architectural experiences and dimensions. Rolf has done something similar here,  only he has not done so by cutting material away, he has done so by the way he has designed the internal structure. Some walls are half high, others actually leave an open space at the bottom, sometimes the walls seem to just spontaneously stop or begin. You can sometimes find the same type of uncoordinated, unmotivated and illogic walls in public utility or housing buildings. Mistakes. The difference is that in this case the seemingly lack of coordination is carefully thought through to create an effect. 

photography frankhanswijk.nl

The material use is extremely  modest, low value materials like pine-wood and unpolished steel are upgraded through sophisticated treatments and use. The application of colors help create the effect of fictive rooms, I would guess there's probably only one door in the house, the one to the rest-room, nevertheless you continuously feel like entering another room.The only real color in this house comes from the orange that Rolf likes to use on the "scar-tissue" of his up-cycled furniture pieces that have also gone through an intervention.

photography Frankhanswijk.nl

The facade looks as if the 3-dimensional space inside; the confrontation of old and new, has been compressed into a 2-dimensional surface. The old window structure is intact though blinded, and finished with black oil to leave only a lightly embossed trace of the past. On-top of this structure, as if paying no attention to the past, new window-frames have protruded themselves out through the surface, made in steel, one could almost mistake them for being chainsaw-cuts.

photography Frankhanswijk.nl

The interior of this house truly works like a spatial walk-in sculpture, the unconventional lay-out  continuously surprise, it tickles the senses with it's patchwork and contrast of textures. It's rough luxury at it's best, Arte Povera re-invented as interior architecture, breaking free from existing conventions about the organization of space and beauty.

architects; Rolf Bruggink (rolf.fr), Iffy, Marnix van der Meer (Zecc architects, Utrecht)