Scholten & Baijings
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photos by Marie Pierre Morel, Scheltens & Abbenes
LHQ: When did you first meet and how did your working relationship begin?
SS: It was in the year 2000. I’d designed a bar for a creatives club in Amsterdam where Carole was working as an assistant director. That project was really our first collaboration. It was very hands-on; among other things we painted a room together. You might say work brought us together.
CB: It clicked immediately when we happened to run into each other on the beach around that time. We even spent our honeymoon in the European Ceramic Work Centre, in ’s-Hertogenbosch, so the studio and our private lives are irrevocably intertwined.
LHQ: How does your design process work—from sketch to working with craftspeople and producers to make it happen?
CB: For us everything comes out of working on a design. New techniques such as computer-aided design are quite useful, but we’re not focused on these tools. We care about skills. Working by hand provides very direct feedback. The handle on a cup that looks right in the design drawing might not be in proportion in a cardboard model. You can see that right off. We’re not concerned with a glorified notion of “handicraft”, but rather with the surprising results that can only emerge during the process of making the object.
SS: To work with the industry, artisans and artists is for us inherent to design. We choose to look for solutions in cooperation with the industry. That’s where the greatest problems lie, as well as the greatest opportunities. In the past, people tried to alter the relationship between designers and manufacturers with design statements: one-off conceptual objects. The time has come to address the issue together. We look for that among artisans, but also among industrial producers. The point is to arrive at a product that contributes something.
We design explicitly for a public, although some pieces contain aspects that apply to evaluating art. This is particularly true of the Vegetables; they’re quite autonomous. To us, though, it’s part of design, because it’s about texture, color, craft and the question of functionality. To us a project like this is a source of inspiration for the rest of our work, and that is a personal necessity. But the intent is not to create art. Art poses different questions.
CB: At the same time, the more personal your products are, the better people like it. So the personal necessity is linked to the public imperative. The question is, how do you show the value of a technique and of the industry? Stimulating interest in that is also a form of conservation. At the same time, we want to hold on to that signature, that typically Scholten & Baijings feel. In whatever category it happens to be.
LHQ: You are exhibiting your work in a museum setting focusing on your design process. How did that come about? Can you elaborate on the four perspectives?
CB: The exhibition “Blush—Design in Full Colour” marks yet another coup for the Stedelijk Museum ’s-Hertogenbosch (SM’s). As it did previously with Wieki Somers (2008) and Maarten Baas (2010), the SM’s is first to present a museum retrospective of our work, as part of its efforts to give the latest of Dutch designers the opportunity to show their work to a wider audience.
SS: The recent SM’s acquisition of our service Paper Porcelain, produced at sundaymorning@ekwc (the former European Ceramic Work Centre), was the reason to invite us for this exhibition. The exhibition “Blush—Design in Full Colour” focuses on our individual design process and personal way of working, which are presented from four different perspectives: “Delighted states,” essential collaborations with museums, reflecting on historical collections; “In fusion,” the Atelier approach, based on workshop thinking; “D-constructed,” widely varying production processes with national and international manufacturers; and “Live in colour,” we take on the use of products in a contemporary living environment. The process from concept via design and choice of production to final product is, therefore, the common thread running through the exhibition.
LHQ: How does color play into your process? Where do you draw inspiration from for your color mixing?
CB: We work based on the material and its colour. Colour combinations produce a harmonious whole within a series.
SS: What’s interesting in that regard is that colour has no grammar. Using the rules of language you can combine words into sentences with which you can ultimately tell a story. That’s not the case with colour. All sorts of things have been written about colour theory and how colours relate. But how you can use colour and develop your own palette, that never comes up. We use music as our model for this. In music you can create combinations that transgress those laws and rules and yet are works of genius. We formulate our own grammar of color. And then violate it entirely!
LHQ: What are your individual strengths?
CB: Everything we do, we do together. We’ve tried to divide up projects, certainly now that more commissions tend to run concurrently, but it doesn’t work. Our designs come about in a natural and intuitive way. Working together is our strength. Stefan is all about the big picture. He’s good at getting things done, so that designs become reality.
SS: Carole makes sure the design turns out exactly as intended. She’s the guardian of the concept. I’m about the centimeter; Carole about the millimetre. In the design we’re involved in equal parts, but each product has to be produced, too.
Paper Table
The design for the Paper Table is inspired by the effect created by folding paper. The final design exudes the nature of the modern times: clear, minimalist and elegantly shaped. The folded cardboard models for the crockery (far right) are translated into light gray, unglazed porcelain cups and plates, playing with the suggestion of cardboard delicately. For the table linen Scholten & Baijings offer a contemporary solution: two sets containing napkins and table runners that can be used in various combinations. The design is complete with a set of sober shaped glassware and cutlery.