Maarten van Severen

Maarten van Severen (5.6.1956, Antwerpen, Belgium - 21.2.2005, Gent, Belgium) - Belgian furniture designer.

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The son of an abstract painter, Maarten Van Severen chose to study architecture at Ghent art school; he completed three years before going to work in various agencies on interior design and furniture projects, then in 1986 started to make furniture. The first piece, a long and slender steel table, has since been recreated as an aluminium model, which has been further refined over the years.

In 1989 he produced his first wooden table; long, slim and pure in form. In 1990 he turned his attention to chairs. His work, handproduced in his workshop in Ghent Belgium, reflects his quest for perfection in form, detail and fabrication. Maarten worked in a variety of different materials: aluminium and ply to bakelite and polyester.

Van Severen was also frequently commissioned as a decorator and furniture designer for private residence projects, teamed with Rem Koolhaas. They worked together on the Villa dall'Ava in 1990, then again in Bordeaux in 1996 (Maison ‡ Floirac, OMA). He has also created imposing exhibition stands of steel shelving for use at shows and trade fairs.

Since 1997 he is involved in industrial productions for Target Lighting (U-Line lamp), Obumex (kitchen), Vitra (chair n°03), Edra (Blue Bench), BULO (Schraag).

His initial work is still manufactured by topmouton in Belgium today. Since 1999 there has been an intense collaboration in further developing his furniture.

A man who loved materialsBy Lauris Morgan-GriffithsFriday Mar 24 2006 09:45Maarten van Severen, who died just over a year ago, of lung cancer at the age of 49, was a designer par excellence. A white-haired bear of a man hailing from Ghent and always walking with a cowboy roll, cigarette in hand, he trod his own line in his own way. Some regard his furniture as an acquired taste. To others, it is mould-breaking, a revelation of simplicity that, to the uninitiated eye, belies the integrity, precision and perfection that goes into it.

Van Severen initially studied as an architect and that is starkly evident in his smaller-scale work. He was not a designer with a capital D. He had no truck for frippery or fashion. Rather, there is a human scale to his work, a warmth, a sensibility, an honesty that gives it a sensuality that minimalism does not necessarily possess. A van Severen table looks almost Trappist in its austerity but pleasing in proportion; his chaise longue is sleek and sculptural; a metal curvy chair is an invitation to sit down, try it out, flex on it.

His ancestors were also artists and craftspeople: his great, great grandfather a blacksmith; his grandfather a housepainter and artist; his father, Dan, a well known Flemish abstract artist. So it is perhaps unsurprising that van Severen has an uncontainable energy and an active curiosity that pushed him to pursue various disciplines: craftsman, designer, artisan, draftsman, photographer, furniture maker, interior designer, architect and painter.

A man who loved materialsBy Lauris Morgan-GriffithsFriday Mar 24 2006 09:45continued from previous page"He put Belgium on the international design map and influenced many young people," says Moniek Bucquoye, who curated his first exhibition and his last. "There are many mini Maarten van Severens now."

James Mair of London's Viaduct store first met van Severen at Milan's Salone del Mobile in 1989 when the Belgian was still unknown outside his home country. On the strength of his portfolio, without having seen a stick of actual furniture, Mair resolved to introduce it to the UK. Seven years later – when Muir felt the timewas right – Viaduct held the firstof two van Severen exhibitions.

"At that first show designers and architects were seen crawling under tables, upending chairs, studying the construction and appreciating the detailing and quality of workmanship," Mair recalls.

By the second exhibition in 2001, van Severen was well known. "The chairs for Vitra had just been launched, there was a sofa for Edra plus the products made by Top Mouton [the Belgian company] . It was very exciting to see Maarten being recognised as an important designer."

Van Severen loved working with different materials because of their distinct properties; he worked with wood, aluminium, steel, bakelite, stone, glass, plywood and polycarbonate. Constantly researching new materials, he was the first to use polyurethane structurally for a chair, which resulted in his first industrially produced piece, the 03 chair by Vitra. He dipped a white garden chair in a material normally used for fencing and used solid concrete for kitchens, while still making it appealing and tactile. Tactility is a keynote of his work.

Van Severen was a slow designer, never dashing off "a quickie". But he worked hard the last two years of his life and left many new designs. These are being realised by Vitra and Top Mouton, a small company that fits out Learjets, yachts, upmarket interiors. Both companies maintain the integrity of his work. But for pure van Severen, the soaped oak table produced in several sizes in batches by Top Mouton beats Vitra's one-size, lacquered version.

"Maarten really wanted the experience of the material to be felt by people," Mair says. "He hated surface finishes as a barrier between the user and the material. His oak table is finished using soap, the one made of raw aluminium is waxed. The aluminium scratches and develops a patina through use and the oak absorbs dinner parties: red wine stains appear and disappear as the oak is scrubbed. Maarten loved the idea of someone imprinting their history on to his furniture."

Nick Top worked closely with van Severen for seven years. "We built special tools and equipment for his furniture," he says, "all painted in Maarten's dark blue so that everyone knew they were for Maarten's work".

Van Severen always worked in tandem with producers but – with the help of two of his sons, David, an architect, and Hannes, a sculptor, who worked with their father – the company is determined to keep his spirit and vision alive, ensuring that his work isn't compromised.

Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of Vitra, has described van Severen as "not a minimalist, but an essentialist". Top thinks of his furniture as "a joy of common sense and life".

Both are spot on. The designer first made a table simply because he needed one; it was a long slender steel structure that was much refined over the years. From there, he continued to make only practical, necessary furniture – tables, chairs, shelves and cabinets. Many home accessories companies pleaded with him to design money-spinning products for them. But he only relented once, creating cutlery for Alessi. Rigorously researched, they are idiosyncratically essential van Severen designs.

Besides furniture, he also designed interiors with the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and on his own. Always inventive and fundamentally practical, this work did not shout to be centre stage. He collaborated on the Villa dall'Ava in Paris, an ingenious elevator room for a house in Bordeaux, the Casa de Musica in Porto, the Seattle Library and the Pont du Gard tourist site near Nîmes.

In contrast to his work, van Severen did not live in a minimal, sparse way. Nor was he precious. He was a shy man who loved nothing better than life lived around the kitchen table with family and friends, eating, drinking, talking, laughing, discussing and having a good time. His studio was stuffed with strange treasures collected on travels or given by family and friends, left around for possible inspiration.

There was even a pig that would loll on a sofa, and some chickens, brought in after one of his sons asked why the family couldn't have a farm even though they lived in the centre of Ghent. It was typical van Severen: if there was a way to do something he would try it. He was humane, warm-hearted, humorous, practical, always seeking a sense of the possible. As Top says, "he was a nice man."

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By Brigid Grauman

Maarten van Severen collaborated on two projects in France with Rem Koolhaas and created furniture that adorns residences and offices around the world. But there is only one house that he designed from top to bottom: a 36m-long, glass-and-steel structure built around an oak tree to contain an apartment and a luxury catering business for twin brothers Kristof and Stefan Boxy.

Stefan approached van Severen to renovate the house that he and his wife Carine had inherited, a 1904 English arts-and-crafts-style villa in Deurle, near Ghent. Faced with dark wood panelling and chequered black and white tile floors that seemed old fashioned and dingy, the couple wanted to make a few changes.

Like a talented butcher, van Severen made a few incisions. In the living room, he inserted a small window at calf level in sheer blue glass, which gives an eery, tinted view of grass and water. In the kitchen, he installed a block of black-flecked concrete top containing an oven, stove, fireplace, sink and work surface; a huge sliding window that leads straight out into the garden; and a long polished steel table that is typical van Severen – smooth as a billiard ball and deceptively light-looking.

The real architectural work took place outside the red-brick house where an impressive glass pavilion now stands, raised slightly above ground on a platform. Kristof, whose primary home is on the coast 80km away, plans to live in a pied-à-terre at one end of the pavilion, which includes a bright blue bathroom (floor, ceiling and walls) with sunken bath and a tiny second-floor bedroom. Its only furnishings are a single Le Corbusier cupboard, a bed, a curtain and a costly leather floor.

The catering kitchen, with two large refrigerators, is at the other end of the box and the rest of the space is taken up by offices and a sitting room furnished with pieces by Josef Hoffmann, Josef Albers and Jules Wabbes.

"The whole project was very, very expensive – way above our original budget, even though we'd factored in that houses always run 50 to 60 per cent over the planned cost," Kristof says.

The oak tree was a big source of trouble. Because it is encased in a glass cylinder, the brothers had to install a system to spread rain water and light and provide ventilation. Pillars sunk into the ground to hold the pavilion's steel-and-concrete plateau were damaging its roots. Another system, this one involving sand and plates, was installed to ease the pressure.

Some of van Severen's more creative ideas simply wouldn't work. The steel kitchen blocks, for example, could not be as thin as he wanted and the fireplace needed a motor on the roof to create a draft.

Van Severen died before construction began. "We had no idea he was so ill," Kristof says.

They are doubly happy to have commissioned the pavilion. "He was a person who really listened to his clients," Kristof says, "and was inventive and humorous too."

External links

* [http://vitra.com/designer/maarten_severen.asp?lang=il_en Maarten van Severen at vitra.com]
* [http://www.bonluxat.com/d/maarten-van-severen.html Maarten van Severen Furniture Designs]
* [http://www.topmouton.be/ Original Furniture Designs]