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"It was a pleasure to set the fire. It was a special joy to see things devoured, to see them blackened, different. With the copper tip of the pipe in his hands, with that big python spitting its venomous paraffin on the world, the blood hammered against his temples, and his hands became the hands of who-knows-what conductor playing all the flaming, incendiary symphonies to bring down all the charred rags and ruins of history." from Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (1920-2012).
Was Maarten Baas (Arnsberg, 1978) work inspired by the first lines of Bradbury's novel? Starting out as a graduation project at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, the Smoke series presents itself as a critique to the concept of beauty. He believes that objects with a history, patina or with human craftsmanship are more interesting than flawless, identical objects from a line of production.
The young designer belongs to a new generation of designers whose work consists of customising pre existing furniture rather than creating them from scratch. Baas appropriates and transforms salvage wooden objects, making them his own and unique through the use of a technique that involves burning them with a blowtorch and then treating them with an epossidic resin that makes the material particularly resistant. When necessary, the pieces are coated or otherwise fixed in order to recover their original function. By stripping the ornaments, Baas diminishes the preciousness of their design and brings the objects closer to their true function as ordinary tables and chairs. He can thus replicate the wear and tear suffered by used furniture and give it a completely new character by burning it and 'artfully disfiguring' them, achieving unpredictable results, in which even the simplest object takes on an unexpected but highly decorative appearance.
In his interviews, the designer often states that he is fascinated by how people tend to preserve and leave intact their brand new furniture. When he burns, tears down and changes the face of things, those pieces immediately acquire a new personality and aesthetic. Each piece is unique, unrepeatable. This concept can be perceived immediately by the way he describes his modus operandi: "My way of working is not common in design. I never use a computer, for example. I 'sculpt' pieces by making them, changing them, always starting over. So it is not 'designing' as most of people think (making a sketch or following a project). I think this is a necessary aspect, which gives personality to my work. A computer cannot do that'.
Baas' work may seem graceless and childish at first glance, but he gives his products meaning by allowing people to discover how his objects were made simply by observing their shape and structure. In 2005, he presented the limited-edition Treasure chairs, made of wood scraps from a furniture factory, assembled in a quick and intuitive way; in the same year he also launched a collection that is in effect a 'collage' called Hey, Chair, Be a Bookshelf! of objects such as bookshelves, hangers, chairs, lampshades and vases.
The collection's Smoke chair and chandelier were so successful that they were soon produced by the Dutch brand Moooi in 2003. In 2004, the Moss Gallery in New York commissioned Maarten to mount a solo exhibition with the design classics he burnt (including Rietveld's Red Blue Chair and Zig Zag Chair, Fernando and Humberto Campana's Favela chair, Sottsass's Carlton bookcase, and Gaudi's Calvet chair), entitled 'Where There's Smoke', and today the pieces are in the collections of major museums, such as the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Groninger Museum. The designer's work is now highly collectible, with pieces being sold for high sums through galleries rather than traditional design retailers.
