Dutch designer Maarten Baas (19/02/1978) was born in Arnsberg, Germany but moved to The Netherlands in 1979 where he grew up.
Upon graduating from high school in 1996 Maarten Baas began his studies at the prestigious Design Academy Eindhoven.
Maarten Baas designed the candleholder Knuckle, which was taken into production, while he was still studying.
In 2000 Maarten Baas studied for several months at the Politecnico of Milan.
In June 2002 he graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven with two designs.
Maarten Baas two design works comprised of a series of charred furniture, popularly known as the Smoke series and an ingenious sundial, displaying the hours in shadow.
Maarten Baas works were nominated for the René Smeets and Melkweg design awards. This led to his collaboration with a group of former Design Academy students, with which they were rewarded during the Design Week in Tokyo.
Three of Maarten Baas’s Smoke works have been reproduced by Marcel Wanders’s international design company MOOOI. It is thanks to the international exposure of successful exhibitions in Milan, London, and Paris that the Smoke series is considered by museums, critics, collectors and the design-informed public an iconic collection of contemporary design.
Smoke pieces have been acquired by important designers and collectors such as Lidewij Edelkoort and Phillipe Starck. Maarten Baas’s Smoke chandelier was showcased at the Victoria and Albert Museum 2004 exhibition ‘Brilliant’ in London while a smoke chair was included in the ‘Nest’ exhibition 2004 at the Stedelijk Museum (www.stedelijk.nl) in Amsterdam.
In May 2004 Maarten Baas debuted his Smoke series stateside in a solo-exhibition at Moss in New York. This monumental exhibition titled ‘Where There’s Smoke...’ offered 25 extraordinary unique pieces, each methodically burned with a blow torch and salvaged by translucent epoxy resin sealant. Maarten Baas, without fear or reserve, torched the classical designs of Gaudi, Eames, Rietveld, Sottsass and the Campana Brothers among many others. The “Where There's Smoke...” concept with Moss was continuing, with one of its highlights in July 2007, when Moss opened their new store in Los Angeles presenting a burned 1934 Steinway grand piano.
The publicity surrounding his New York exhibition lead to the Groninger Museum’s commission of an new collection of works which was exhibited in their ‘Nocturnal Emissions’ exhibition in 2004.
Without hesitation, the Groninger Museum turned over an entire suite of antique furniture from the original museum collection, for Maarten Baas to transform and resurrect from obscurity.
In 2005 Maarten Baas began collaborating with Bas den Herder, who is now responsible for the production of all of Maarten Baas’s works. The founding of studio Baas & den Herder made it possible to produce Maarten Baas’s unique pieces on a larger scale. This new collaboration allows for all pieces to continue to be handcrafted in Holland and for Maarten Baas to take on even more ambitious projects and private commissions from hotels, restaurants, galleries and museums all over the world. Each of the pieces which are made in this studio, are uniquely handmade by Baas and his team of ten assistants. All these pieces are signed, dated and -where required- numbered by Maarten Baas.
Maarten Baas approaches design without knowledge of, or care for, predisposed boundaries. This method of approach was further strengthened by his 2005 exhibition at the Salone del Mobile in Milan, where he unveiled his Treasure, Hey, chair, be a bookshelf! and Flatpack Furniture which was yet again received with great anticipation and critical acclaim. At the Salone del Mobile in 2006 Maarten Baas launched Clay Furniture, which is recognized as the natural successor to Smoke and ultimately one of the most surprising projects unveiled at the festival. After which point, Cibone organized a solo-exhibition in Tokyo titled Clay and Smoke thus bringing his works to the Eastern market. 2006 also marked a second exhibition at Moss when they presented the Clay collection at the ICFF in New York and at Design Miami design fair.
That same year saw the Design Museum in London display 18 pieces from the Clay collection. Maarten Baas newest collection, Sculpt, was launched in 2007 at the Salone del Mobile, Milan. Baas’s new collection consists of gracefully oversized chairs, cupboards, tables and chests-of-drawers. Each piece begins as a rough, hand-carved miniature model which Maarten Baas scales to life-size deliberately producing well finished furniture which naturally contradicts their some times wood-veneered and metal construction. Each new work comes in a limited edition of eight.
In 2005 Maarten Baas collaborated with Ian Schrager’s design team on the new Gramercy Park Hotel. Maarten Baas supplied Smoke furniture for each room, several Clay works and a Smoke billiard table for the lobby.
All pieces were hand made by studio Baas & den Herder and debuted at the August 2006 opening. Maarten Baas lives and works in Waalre, near Eindhoven, in the Southern region of the Netherlands. It is there where Maarten Baas produces his handmade furniture and is continually developing new concepts and designs. New solo exhibitions will be launched in Los Angeles, London, Tokyo and Shanghai this coming year.
