Dutch Design

The Umthombo drop-in centre in Durban, South Africa, provides a day-care service for 50 of the city’s 3000 street children. Jair Straschnow and Gitte Nygaard stayed at the centre for several weeks and designed several practical solutions for some of the problems the center is facing. In order to create a space for personal expression, they designed tables and benches for playing games, drawing and writing. The Postbox Lockers provide the children with storage for their belongings but they also provide a symbolic ‘identity’ or ‘address’ for these dispossessed children. In this way Straschnow and Nygaard draw attention to these children’s unfortunate situation.

Dutch Design is supposed to be defiant: a book about colour could easily end up to be in black and white. But is it Defiance, that makes Dutch Design known all over the world? Or is it something else; idealism perhaps or a tendency to be frugal with materials. Dutch designers may be social engaged or they might combine calvinism and creativity in an unexpected way. In this series, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen interviews a varied range of Dutch designers - upcoming and well known - about their work, their doubts and their ideals. The first ten video interviews were made for the Rotterdam Design Prize (www.designprijs.nl) - a national Dutch prize which concentrates on the shared qualities of Dutch design and intensifies the design debate. The prize celebrates the most remarkable creative vision that made a major contribution to the design profession in the Netherlands in the preceeding two years.

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Dutch Design

Dutch Design

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