Hella Jongerius approaches design with the analytic intensity of a scientist. Every design is a manifestation of a well-researched hypothesis, an incisive investigation of form, color, and shadow. And she imbues her high-tech, contemporary approach with a handicraft sensibility, owing to her childhood years in the Netherlands spent knitting and decorating. Through cultivating a process-oriented practice that fuses industrial design with traditional craft techniques, Jongerius has established herself as a truly unique visionary in the art and design world. Over her decades long career, she has worked with such companies as Ikea, Vitra, and KLM, and her products can be found in the collections of MoMA and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Hella:
I was raised in a small village, so we didn’t live in the village, but outside the village because we had some land. My father is a farmer and I have three brothers, no sisters, and my mother also didn’t have any sisters. So she also had three brothers. So the household was kind of filled with men. And I was the only woman with my mother, but she’s also kind of tomboy. So yeah, I was one of the guys and that, I think, is an important part of who I am right now. And the freedom of living in a farm, so my mother just opened the door in the morning and we just went out and I was the whole time outside playing around. And just, I don’t know, just spent my day and see what happens playing with my brothers.
And there were also no neighbors because it was outside the village. And so it was a very simple life, but also I think to have your own world and no agenda and no clocks or activities. We didn’t go out to museums or theaters, or… We only went to the swimming pool in the village. So I also didn’t go on holiday. I had my swimming pool card and that’s what I did the whole summer. That was my holiday. And in a way it was simple. And, I must say a safe and happy childhood. And creative also because if you are alone outside the whole day with your brothers you just make your own games and be on your bicycle and play bicycle football or whatever, you know? Building houses or just nerf my… You know, yeah, I don’t know. It was a very open, creative world.
And, you know, I can also tell the other part of the story, but there is also of course, a shadow part on this being without any culture. But I like to stay with the positive part and the romantic side of it raising up in a simple life. Yeah.
Arkitektura:
I mean, I guess, it’s interesting because I mean, you and I are both parents and you think about the influences that you bring to your child’s life. And we live in a city and we go to New York often. We go to museums all the time. But the ability to teach how to just completely let go and to not have an agenda and to not necessarily have a map as to what you’re going to do and to create something from that, that might be even more valuable than the exposure to other creatives or other art forms or whatever it might be because it teaches a way of thinking, or it inspires a way of thinking, which I think is really interesting.
Hella:
Yeah. And it creates a growing of the self. So you start to understand or discover yourself in this emptiness and if your day is full with topics and input from the outside I think… I also raise my children in the city, because I wanted to be myself in the city and so they followed. But I didn’t go a lot with them to museums or restaurants because I think, Poor kids, they are happy to do other things.
Arkitektura:
Absolutely. And you said that your mom was a tomboy and that you were kind of one of the guys and that that’s had a great influence on you. In what way? Like what’s the influence that that’s had. Why did you say that?
Hella:
Well, working with industry, what I did for a long time in my career, and being a designer also in a world where there are a lot of men, but especially when you work with companies, I had to deal with directors and technicians and often men. And for me, it’s a very easy relation. It’s very easy socially. I can connect myself very easy to a group of men or to one guy or whatever. So for me, they’re all my brothers. So I always see one of my brothers in them. So, I think when I meet somebody, a guy, I think, Oh yeah, that’s this and this brother. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, this is this and this character. So for me, it’s very easy to connect and to relate and to work together as one of the guys. Although I am of course another animal. But that’s always easy and I understand the jokes and I can make the jokes and I can be laid back and I can be critical.
“I feel privileged and thankful that I can look back in my work that it’s not only about making just stuff, but also built upon human interesting relationships.”
So most of the people that I’ve been working with in the industry, so I only worked with a few companies because I wanted to choose very carefully companies that share my own values because that’s most easy. That’s of course also another topic like I meet men or people with whom I share values, we are the same bubble and the same cultural niche. And so it’s easy to connect, you know? I’m not saying I connect to all guys. But in this particular field, I connect easy and I’m very close friends with the companies that I’ve been working with. So we are really friends, you know? And I like this relation. I cherished it and I think it’s nice. And I also feel privileged and thankful that I can look back in my work that it’s not only about making just stuff, but also built upon human interesting relationships.
Arkitektura:
And so when you say your values, how would you define those?
Hella:
Yes, my values.
Arkitektura:
It’s a hard question actually.
Hella:
Well, yeah, it’s very… Yeah. I think I’m a Calvinist, so I have a kind of work ethos. I have my moral issues, moral thoughts. I have a critical mind. And I’m questioning a lot of things I’m not taking facts for granted.
Arkitektura:
It’s a very difficult question. And I don’t know if it’s something that is fixed either. I mean..
Hella:
No.
Arkitektura:
…I think it’s something that evolves and I think one day, one value might feel more prominent than another. And doesn’t mean that the other one isn’t there, but yeah, it’s a hard question. But I think that it’s an important one because it kind of sets the foundation for the choices that you make professionally and creatively. And so it’s kind of like the benchmark that you go back to. But your brothers, did they get involved in anything creative as well? Or were you the odd one?
Hella:
No. Yeah. I’m the artist. Yeah.
Arkitektura:
You’re the artist, yeah. And when did you first pick up on kind of knowing that you had this different way of seeing the world?
Hella:
I don’t know, yeah. If you are the only a woman in a group, then you know you are different, so you are also allowed to be different. And that gives also liberation. So I was never afraid to step out of the group and do my own thinking or have my own opinion.with the friends that I have, we were always, you know, I was raised in the ’70s, so we always were knitting and decorating our rooms and being creative during our free time. So there was this creativity in the air when I was raised. And yeah. It’s so hard to say, when do you discover that you are creative? I don’t know. I really lost time when I was doing my knitting and I was also good at it, and I made crazy sweaters and in my room, I just decorated it all the time.
And so it was a flow an easy intrinsic flow. I don’t know. And then you don’t have the word, like, Oh, how creative are you? No, it’s just like, it was just a state of being. And later on it took me years to discover what school to go to. It took me 10 years. So I started at 26, the Design Academy in Eindhoven and yeah. And just before that, I was still doubting if I want to go to an art school or design school. But I thought I’d like to choose for a profession where there are boundaries, because I think I needed those boundaries which are in the design field more visible or more given. And so I was still not a free animal. I was still the one that was raised without culture. And I had to discover myself and I thought that I could explore myself. It was more safe to choose for design in the end. I think that was the reason why I have chosen for design.
Arkitektura:
Yeah. I mean, 26 years old, at that point what, I mean, it’s probably hard to reflect, but walking into the Design Academy, which is such a world famous design academy and so many great designers have come out of there. So walking into there, you had an idea of yourself and your aspirations and how did those evolve over your time at school? Like, how did your perception of yourself evolve over that time?
Hella:
Yeah, I must say that it was also the time before I went to school, there was this liberation, the woman’s… I was in all kinds of feministic groups. So I liberated already before I went to the school. And so I came quite strong in the school. So I didn’t know a lot about culture or about design or whatever, but as a person, I left a lot behind me. And I really was strong and independent and knew who I… On a certain level, knew a bit what I was looking for. So in the school, I must say, I had a big mirror in front of my head. Like, What do you want to express? What is your voice?
And that was quite hard to find because I didn’t understand the profession at all. So I started to look in the first books when I entered to school about design. So Memphis and Modernism, Bauhaus, all this movement I didn’t know. So first I needed to understand in which profession I was landed. And then in the last two years, it was the search for my own voice. So what do I want to address? What is my voice? What is my quality? And that was the last years of the academy.
Arkitektura:
And I think that for young designers, how do you not get intimidated by that question?
Hella:
Well, yeah. I think for young designers now, what is the different from the moment when I graduated, they have such a huge problem facing like this whole climate crisis. So there is a huge problem, huge topic in the air. You could say, Okay, that’s an advantage. I have a question from the outside, so I don’t need to think myself. But on the other hand, you still need to know what envelope will I push? You know, and what is my quality in this? Not just making a concept or whatever, just solving a kind of issue or addressing a topic within this big problem, but how to find yourself and listen to your voice in this huge drama. So it’s even more difficult, I think, for a young person now to find your own voice, because there’s so much pressure from the situation that we are in.
So there is so much noise around you, which is also an advantage. So you get the problem on your plate, Why? Why you need to design or need to create. But what is your own voice in this? This is really a difficult question now, I think, for young people, but also was also in my time. And I think artist are… You know, if you just graduated, you need to find your voice, your handwriting, what is your interest? What is your specialty? Yeah. And it’s not that you have on a certain moment, the answer. You grow into your answer. When I first made these rubber vases and the topic of imperfection, I didn’t have the word “imperfection,” I just made the things I wanted to make and the products I missed in my cupboard and in the cupboards of my friends. And then later in your career you connect the dots and you connect your topics and you find words and you find your own voice and your own way of saying. And the questions are raising and raising.
So it is not an answer that I received, but more questions that I now have. And yeah. So, interesting.
Arkitektura:
Why do you think the element of imperfection was compelling to you then?
Hella:
I think it was the human aspect that I was missing in the industrial field and the crafts that we left behind. So it was all about this series, this efficiency, I didn’t recognize myself in it and I didn’t recognize a human scale. And I think craft can teach you so much to question. So, within crafts you have materials and a material never travels alone. So it has a social and geopolitic agenda. So a craft is always connected to a community, to the making. And yeah, I think that that’s something I was missing. And also, I think it’s more interesting to see mistakes or… The imperfect world is interesting. The relaxedness of it. And also the creativity you find in the fringes or not in the efficient world, I think. Yeah, I was missing this in the industrial series in the stores and at the companies. Yeah.
Arkitektura:
So of course going to the Design Academy was a turning point in your life. And for some time you became an industrial designer and yet had this, really, this kind of craft history that started in your childhood. And what was the next kind of major turning point, do you feel, that happened to shift your direction? Because, you know, when you look at the history of your work, it is vast. I mean, like I said at the beginning of this interview, I came upon your work not through say an object, but through a tattoo. And one of the things that has kind of stayed with me in looking through all the work that you’ve done is this profound connection to color. And I think that a lot of people would say that about your work. But for a long time you were an industrial designer and then something pivoted or shifted. And what was that and why?
Hella:
So I started with working with Droog Design. And I made a lot of conceptual work. So questioning this imperfection and individuality, although designed in series. And the first eight years I was working on my own, on my own agenda, on my own interest, but always related to industry, because I wanted to work within the system to change something within this industrial system. And on a certain moment after 8 or 10 years, I don’t know, the first questions from industry came. So I started to work with companies, Vitra, Maharam, IKEA, KLM airline. And so I did this, I think, for 15 years or 20 years.
So if I received the question from a company, I always started to wandering around and question. And so it was never a straight line from the question from the company to an answer. So I always wandered around so I always had also side projects and prototypes that never land, or were too crazy, too hysterical, for the question they had. But I didn’t show at that time. So that was not visible because I was so busy with these companies. So the end results are shown as this period of my career. I only did industrial work, but all the side projects or the research around, or the wandering around some questions were never shown, but I needed that to come to an end result. So in the last years, I think the last 5 or 8 or 10 years, I don’t know where, this is a fluid way of working. I started to step out more out of the industrial world.
This color field was the first topic, which I took out as a theme to search without questions from a company. So I did this for a long time for Vitra. I worked for Vitra, a Swiss company. I worked as a color material, for the color material library. So I invented this library for them, and I had so much work on color and so I wanted to dive deeper and research deeper. And I was asked to do a show at the London Design Museum. And I told them I would like to do a show on color. And that was the first theme without a company shown on a cultural platform, a museum. And I must say that was liberating again.
And also I think at that moment, because I also wrote this manifesto with Louise Schouwenberg about Beyond the New, already asking what are the ideals in design? So the jacket or my suit, my industrial suit was bursting. You know, I couldn’t express myself. I could research deeper than was necessary for a company. And after the color show, I did a few other themes, like weaving and research project with a lot of prototypes and a lot of… Yeah. Serious try to open up new realities and research machines. So the last years I’m more away from my industrial partners and more into the world of art. Because immediately there is another title, suddenly you are in the world of art. So yeah, this is a bit the way it went.
Arkitektura:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can imagine… It sounds like a strange question, but the relationships that you had with these companies, you were saying that there were a lot of projects that maybe didn’t come to fruition or a lot of ideas that didn’t come to fruition. How supported did you feel by those clients or those companies that you were working with in your process? You know, how does that relationship work? Like, I think about that when we have clients. Like say we do a big project with Carnegie Hall or the Whitney Museum or MoMA, and we have maybe more outlandish ideas of how do use sound. And they’re like, No, no, no, we want to get back to kind of something… We want a straightforward answer. I’m not saying that that’s necessarily happening, but what were those relationships like?
Hella:
Yeah, of course they want a result. But often you don’t get paid for your design work in the companies that I work with. So I don’t get paid. So they don’t mind if you come each time with new, great, brilliant ideas or [inaudible] tries because they don’t pay your hours. And I was also in the position that there were not… Well, for Maharam I had to deliver three upholsteries a year. So I really needed to deliver. But at Vitra I didn’t need to deliver. So it was just like on a certain moment, one of the ideas was ready enough to start a prototype and start to make it into a product on the list for them. So in that sense, I was, I think lucky and I also could afford it, to wander around, because this is of course a luxury that you don’t have to deliver immediately.
And now that I work more on my own and research on my own and the product that I deliver is a exhibition, this is still not a business model. So, you know, we also have to be real. I also have to support my family and my team. So this wandering around and research, you also need to find a business model for it. And yeah. So this is what I’m now trying to solve. Yeah, that’s another question mark. There’s also one of the layers you need to address and find an answer on, so there’s always this balance of the reality and the poetry.
Arkitektura:
Yeah. It’s a tough one to balance for sure. Especially when the poetry is so intriguing and so compelling.
Hella:
Yeah.
Arkitektura:
And so, I don’t know, it’s just wonderful. And I think it’s something that, especially now with the reality of life being so complicated, I mean COVID, and the environment, and I mean, so many things, so many things. It just seems so crazy that to kind of allow for poetry, and I don’t mean actual written poetry, but poetic thought, is, I don’t know. You need it to survive. In what ways does that initial kind of exploration of imperfection still find itself in your work now?
Hella:
I think it’s always there. It’s always there. So I think if there is a project or an object or a material that is so efficiently made or so hygienic, so without any air, without any blood, if there is not an openness, the option of that you could use it different or that you can see it different. If this oxygen is not visible or feelable in the tactility or in the skin or in the texture or in the weight, if there’s not a twist, yeah, then you can’t relate as a person. So it doesn’t communicate it. It’s only communicating if there is some air, some blood, in the project. And that’s the unexpected, that’s the imperfection, that’s the misfit, that gives you the feeling that you’re alive, it communicates.
And I think that’s important because we are related with our objects. And I’m interested in this relationship with what we have with our objects. It’s also I think one of the answers of over consumption and overproduction. So if we still start to design for the landfill, we have to find an answer in what an object can bring more than functionality. And this poetry, what we just talked about, the fact that something can touch you, like what art can do, this is what you also want in your daily object, and that you can see it each time differently. And you can relate, you feel human. And I think that’s what I’m searching for. And you can call it imperfection, but yeah, it’s a human trace. Let’s say it that way.
Arkitektura:
Yeah. Tonight we had some people over for dinner and they complimented this series of elephants that I have. And I bought those elephants when I think I was probably 14 at some store. It’s a beautiful piece actually. And that’s followed me through all these years of moving to New York and different places and San Francisco and going to college and all of that. And, it’s so significant and kind of everything, if I look around in where I live, everything around me has some level of significance. A lot of it has been made by people we know.
But I think about how people don’t live with things that are of great meaning to them. And what does that do? But then I also think about the fact that someone asked you like, Who is your favorite designer? And I think Jurgen Bey was a favorite designer because of your friendship, but Jasper Morrison was whom you had said in that interview at that time. And one of the things you said about him, and I do love Jasper Morrison too, is because he’s just so perfect. I think that was possibly the word you used. And so Jasper Morrison is so many people’s favorites. You know, we love his work. And why does something like that work even if doesn’t carry that human aspect that we’re speaking about? I’m wondering. I’m just curious.
Hella:
I think one of the things… I also find his work is very nice and very attractive. I think we are all still children from the modernism. So we still have a love of the silence and the perfect, silent, absent expression in modern new objects that you buy, in daily objects. I think that’s still our taste, our style, what we are brought up with. Also, I still like to buy objects that are just very nicely detailed and without any expression. And on the other hand, I have a lot of objects in my house that what you say you are related to. So you know where you found it, you know the person who made it, or it is special because of whatever other reason. So there is also a lot of noise in my house. For other people. They would think, My God, what is this all?
But for me, it’s my privacy. It’s my home. It gives me my human, private, protected life. And the product from Japer, for instance, he is I think one of the best in this field, this silent, detailed, very efficient product, they have a beauty, an aesthetic beauty what I could only explain of that we are raised as a modernist. And I really think this is it. But that doesn’t mean it is not valuable. So I really love it. And I can also be attracted to a teapot or, what do I have from Jasper, my alarm clock and cherish it and be happy with an object that doesn’t give me too much sound, you know, that is silent. I think for me, it’s because it is silent and it is aesthetic, very nicely detailed. Yeah.
Arkitektura:
I think that’s such a beautiful way of saying it because it’s true when you think about it. I mean, I didn’t think about it that way. Of course now, because I love… I’m all about sound. It’s so true. It’s so many of these objects that have so much meaning for you are noisy, beautifully noisy.
Hella:
Yeah, they’re noisy.
Arkitektura:
But they’re noisy. It’s true. They’re very noisy. And suddenly something is charged in you. And then you look at these other things that we’re saying Jasper Morrison, but there are other designers as well, and it gives space for the noise to not be overwhelming. And…
Hella:
Yeah, yeah, it is true.but there is also modern design that’s also noisy, that’s not well designed.
Arkitektura:
Yes.
Hella:
Because the material is not well used, it is not functioning, it is not very well detailed. And it distracts me. I’m getting annoyed by stupid things that are… So the silence, I think it’s the best way to express. And the silence is also the confidence of, well, I’m safe with this object because I don’t need to put a lot of attention in it because it gives me the comfort of an aesthetic, functional, detailed product. Yeah.
Arkitektura:
Yeah. That’s a really beautiful way of saying it. I completely get that. And I can think of all the ways and how human that actually is, too. I mean, our daughter turned 10 yesterday, and we were looking at…
Hella:
Congratulations.
Arkitektura:
Thank you. And we were looking at… It is, it’s a milestone. It really is. It’s fascinating. And the morning of her birthday, we were looking at videos of her as a little, little, little baby. Little, little baby, and the quietness of that. And there’s a lot of noise too, but there’s a different level of quietness that happens, especially in those first few weeks. And I mean, I’m getting a little too esoteric here, but I’ll say it anyways, which is, if you think about the quiet this of life and how you kind of emerge from quietness in the womb and into this noise of the world, and then it just becomes noisier as you learn more information. Yeah. There’s great value in quiet.
But I do have a question for you, and I know that we’re nearing the end of our time together. But we’ve interviewed some incredible designers in this series, Naoto Fukasawa, Gaetano Pesce, so many people that are really incredible in their field. And I’ve been wanting to interview you for a very long time. And I’ve known about your work for a very long time.
So you’ve been successful for quite some time. And speaking to you now and hearing this aspect of humanity and poetry and to allow your time to wander and explore are such beautiful concepts. And I wouldn’t say seem… I think people who strive for success, the kind of level of success that you have, don’t necessarily allow for those things. And so I wanted to ask you, how did you become so successful? What does it take? The question is not only how did you become so successful, but how did you become successful and stay true to who you are and what you believe?
Hella:
Hmm. I think that’s the same. That’s very much the same. That’s also how we started this conversation, finding your own voice and keep your own voice. I think my success is I have a talent for entrepreneurship. I think that’s something that you need to be successful. So, apart from your own voice and your questions and have a talent for something, so you also have to have this reality check or this reality. Yeah. You have to be an entrepreneur. And I think because my father was one, all my three brothers are entrepreneurs. So I think that’s one of the success pillars.
And I think also that I am very close to the time. Always reflecting to what is the question now. How do we live now? What is happening now? I also think I was lucky. My start was very lucky. That’s also part of the success. So I fell together with this movement in Holland, this Droog Design movement. So I didn’t have to bring myself into the world because my products were allowed in this, were good enough in this wave of this conceptual design. So the first eight years I was free to work on my own and there was funding for it. So there was money. I didn’t have any boundaries. So I had a very, very lucky start. I fell together with this movement, which gave me wings.
And then it is a question of, you just need to work your ass off. It’s just like you just wrapped it up like, Oh, how poetic or how artistic are your topics? Sorry. But it’s also working very, very hard and making the right decisions. Being fast at your decisions. Have a very good connection to your intuition. I think these are the topics that brought me success.
Arkitektura:
In San Francisco, in the Bay area, entrepreneurship is coupled with great success, but also failure. In a good way. I mean the famous Apple quote is fail early, fail often, or fail often, fail early. I don’t remember exactly how it goes, but there’s a lot of that sort of, I don’t know, reverence for failure. And before we got on this call, I was listening to an interview about Steven Sondheim, who is an American songwriter and very famous, did all the most famous musicals of the 20th century. And he said that what he had learned was that if you’re going to make a mistake, make not a small mistake, make a very big mistake. And I wondered if you’d agreed with that. You don’t want to fall from a shallow place. You want to fall from a high place, you know? And I thought that was such an interesting comment. And I’m sure you’ve made mistakes. I mean…
Hella:
Of course. Yeah. Of course, if you reach out and if you want to change something, if you push borders you sometimes fall over the cliff. But if you have a small company like my company, then you also have to be aware… Or that’s also I think why I have a small company, because it was easy on a certain moment to grow and to have a huge design studio. But I knew when I have this pressure of feeding all those people, I’m not free any longer. I cannot be myself. I cannot express the way I want to express myself and lose my voice because then I have to work for the money. And this is not what my interest is. And also not what my talent is. So making big mistakes is also a luxury, you know, and you can only make big mistakes if the business part will not kill you by making this mistake.
So yeah, the size of your company needs to also fit with your ambition or your truth or your search. And I also often did in my career only worked with one person and then worked again with 15 people. So I really also made this waves in growing and stepping back and growing and stepping back. Just also feel this dynamic and with 15 people you can, of course, make a speech you could never do on your own. And you have many smart hands and many, many brains, and you really can go into fifth. You ride very fast and why you can explore fields you’ll never think of. And then go back again and be on your own for a year, for two years, just to feel again where are you? Where am I? What is my question? How do I relate to the time now? What are my questions? So I think that’s for me important, and also part of my success.
Arkitektura:
I love that idea. What is my question? Not what is my answer, but what is my question?
So for young people you were saying, it’s now so hard, young designers, because there’s so many constraints in the world. You know, I was reading, what was I reading today? Someone that was pretty accomplished had… I was reading something about how they didn’t ultimately feel like they were doing something good in the world. And you know, you and I are lovers of design. You more so, it’s your whole life, professionally speaking. But for a young person now, why become a designer? Why is it still relevant and important to, design things?
Hella:
Because we need things. So, everything around us is designed. And I think we are in this transformation, this material transformation, and in this production, we need to rethink everything. If we will go to another level of energy. So fossil energy is no longer, we cannot use it anymore. So everything has to rethink of in our field, in the whole world, but also in our field. And that’s interesting. So there is a lot to do. We can design our way out of this shit. And I think that’s what we have to design. We have to design a new future. And I think it’s a great question if you are young. And also for me, if you’re old. It’s an exciting moment also. So I hope young people see the positive part of this time, this positive vibe and get energy out of it and yeah. yeah. I don’t know, design our new future, I would say. That’s an interesting approach now.
Arkitektura:
Yeah, that’s great. I don’t want to take too much more of your time because I know you have a full day of all kinds of exciting things.
Hella:
Yeah. And you need to go to sleep.
Arkitektura:
And I guess I need to go to sleep, but I thank you so much for your time and wonderful speaking with you.
Hella:
Yeah. That was also a very, very nice conversation. Thank you so much.
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