| I am dutch; I started a long time ago at the Royal Academy of The Hague
where I was lucky enough to have amongst others as a teacher Gerrit Thomas
Rietveld from the 'De Stijl' group; later I studied Produktform at the
Hochschule f¸r Gestaltung in Ulm Germany with other famous teachers
like Max Bill, Walter Zeischegg , Tom?s Maldonado. My start as a designer
was in Italy at Olivetti with Ettore Sottsass; later I opened my own studio
in Milan where my japanese wife Hiroko Takeda later joined me. Together
we designed many products in our studio in
Gavirate north of Milan near the great lakes at the foot of the Alps. From
the very beginning I was attracted by theory
underlying practical work: one reason why part of my time is dedicated
to teaching, writing articles
and discussing design. A special attention was given to the development
of a design language as the title of the site
indicates. The ETC. in the title means that I consider equally neighboring
disciplines, like: philosophy, metaphysics, poetry. This is also why I
open this page. |
