Collection

Now that the nights are getting colder, you can take the winter comforter out of the closet again. But did you know that the comforter has recently become common? Until the 1970s, many people in the Netherlands slept under a sheet and wool blanket at night. Preferably a blanket from the Dutch weaving mill AaBe in Tilburg. With the increasing popularity of the comforter, the blanket on the bed has sunk into oblivion, even though a wool blanket has so much to offer.

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Blankets from Dutch soil

Warm wool blankets in almost every color imaginable. Plain or patterned. On the children's bed, but also on that of adults. And with the signature label with the reindeers sewn on it. The AaBe wool blankets have a place in the collective memory of those who consciously experienced the 50s and 60s. Aabe blankets were made in the textile city of Tilburg and AaBe was the only Dutch manufacturer to make these wool blankets.

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The very beginning

The AABe factory was founded in 1929 by Adolf van den Bergh, formally named: AaBe wool fabric and wool blanket factories N.V. Van den Bergh grew up in a family that worked in the textile industry and chose his initials as the trade name for his own firm. After studying at the higher textile school in Enschede, Van den Bergh first worked for a few years in his father's textile company. In 1929, he started his own business and built his spinning and weaving mill in Tilburg. The AABE factory was not a dark, stuffy factory as was common at the time, but a modern, light and spacious factory. A lot of light enters the large, elongated building with glass shed roofs. More than a year after the opening, around a hundred people were already working there. And despite the crisis years of the 1930s, AaBe was doing well. The factory also made it through the Second World War.

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Reconstruction with wool

After the war, the successful company expanded significantly. It takes many employees to deliver blankets to the large customer base of individuals, hospitals, hotels, shipping companies and airlines. In addition, AaBe made wool clothing and uniform fabrics and interior textiles. The more than 1,500 employees, internally trained as textile workers, formed a close-knit community. This was also actively encouraged by AaBe. For example, the factory clock says: “Collaboration creates joy and creates a product you can be proud of.” AaBe's philosophy, with an emphasis on making quality products, community and modernity, fits seamlessly with the ideas of the reconstruction period in the 1950s.

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From blanket to comforter (and back)

Since the 1970s, however, the popularity of AaBe has declined as a result of the introduction of the comforter, a (for that time) luxurious alternative to the blanket. Comforters are bulky, yet light and warm. And, important advantage: they don't sting. The wool blanket takes it off and disappears into the dog bed, shed, or back of the car. This affects the factory, which, after difficult years and several relaunches, went bankrupt again in the 90s.

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Today, however, the AaBe brand name still exists and the Aabe blankets even seem to have been rediscovered. Just like that, as a blanket or rug on the couch, but also in a second life as a piece of clothing. There are fashion labels that buy wool blankets and make garments out of them, such as Wintervacht and Hullekes. The material is gaining popularity again because it is warm, insulates well and is biodegradable. Properties that seamlessly match the current idea of more local and sustainable production.

From the 1950s, many people were given more free time and more space for hobbies and relaxation. Playing a game together proved to be a fun way to spend time with family, friends and the kids and playing games became popular. The Van Eesteren Museum has a number of great games from that period in its collection.

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Famous games

Although the well-known games Man Worse Not and Monopoly were invented in the first half of the 20th century, they became popular with a wide audience after the Second World War. The range developed rapidly at the time and many games from that time are still popular. One such example is Stratego, a strategic game where different armies fight each other to win the war. This was invented by Jacques Mogendorf, a Jewish man who went into hiding during the war. Mogendorf launched Stratego in 1946, after which he sold it to the well-known toy distributor Jumbo in 1958. It is popular for its challenging level and is still one of the best-selling games in the Netherlands. Another game that is still popular today is the English Cluedo.

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Dice and pawns

The name may sound Asian, but the game Yahtzee comes from Canada where it was created by a couple in 1954. By adding up the points (eyes) of dice, you can score points. The game is a favorite vacation game for many because it's easy to carry around. And, unlike many other games, you can also play Yahtzee alone. Many people who grew up in the 50s will also remember a game of Halma.

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Find the same picture

In 1959, the German manufacturer Ravensburger launched a game that is also an integral part of the gaming cabinet, Memory. The goal of the game is simple: find two of the same images together. The images were made by German graphic designer Manfred Burggraf, who provided the now distinctive retro look of the original Memory version. In the years that followed, Memory received endless performances, for adults and children. In the Netherlands, these included variants with Miffy and other figures by Dick Bruna.

September 2022 — We were pleasantly surprised this spring by another special donation to the museum. Collector Kees Slegt donated his collection of Fris Edam vases and various pieces of tableware from this Edam ceramic factory. Earlier, the Jubilant service, a famous service by Fris that can be seen in the museum house, was Object of the Month. However, we couldn't leave this beautiful collection of vases unnoticed. That is why the entire collection of Fris Edam vases is the Object of this Month.

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Vases in all shapes and sizes

In addition to utensils, from egg cups to cheese cloches and from plates to peanut trays, Fris Edam also produced more luxurious ceramic interior accessories, such as bowls, ashtrays and vases. The vases, in particular, were very popular in the 50s of the last century. The models were simple in shape, yet surprising thanks to the color palette. Popular were white and shades of grey, as well as blue, brown or yellow. Decorated versions were also made in the early years. For example, artist Nel Bruynzeel designed organic forms interspersed with almost childish figures, such as in the 705 collection.

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Distinctive character

The post-Second World War zeitgeist felt good with their chief designer Hendrik Willem de Vries. Fris did not continue to produce pre-war models, but launched a completely new collection and thus distinguished himself from other Dutch ceramic producers. The fresh colors, simple shapes and excellent functionality matched the need for new, modern products. It also suited the views of the Goed Wonen Foundation, which earned Fris a style and quality label.

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Servant function

At the beginning of the 1950s, the vases were still turned by hand. This was a valuable traditional process, but also very time-consuming. In addition, for head designer Willem Hendrik de Vries, a sleek and uniform design was very important and hand-turned vases, even with excellent craftsmanship, are unfortunately not. De Vries wanted a collection with a sleek design, based on the principle that the vase should have a serving function and should not take the attention away from the flowers. Although earlier collections of vases were very popular, De Vries took them off the market and came up with a new collection based on a special casting process: sleek, efficient and with a serving function. Until the 1960s, De Vries designed new collections of vases that became very popular according to these strict principles. this movie includes original images from Fris's workshop and shows how the vases (and other ceramics) were made.

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Six boxes of Fris Edam

Fris Edam ceramics, and vases in particular, are enthusiastically collected these days. Kees Slegt, born and raised in Amsterdam and a visual artist by profession, is also such a collector. He was born in 1946 and grew up among Fris Edam plates, tea cups and serving dishes much loved by his mother. When he left the family home, he received two Fris Edam serving dishes. When he came across a Fris Edam salad bowl at a fair in 1992, his mother's love for this ceramic spilled over to him and he started collecting Fris Edam. And although the vases are an important part of his collection, the Jubilant tableware remains his personal favorite.

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“It started with the Jubilant service (..), which is the best service ever made in the Netherlands. Not only is the design very sleek and linear, but it also has a kind of mystical feel. It's like having a cup in your hands that's floating. '

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Slegt and his wife have been collecting Fris Edam tableware and catalogues for about 20 years. Due to their move to a smaller home, they had to 'unpack' so to speak and decided to part with their Fris Edam collection. They donated part of it to the Van Eesteren Museum and we are very grateful to them for that.

For Stichting Goed Wonen, the ideal interior consisted of sleek, multifunctional furniture made from industrial materials. Although they had a revolutionary vision in the 1950s, their ideals did not directly appeal to the general public. That tight fit was far too uncomfortable for many people! But there was one interior trend that bridged the gap: rattan.

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Rattan industry in the Netherlands

Rattan (Calamus rotang, also: rattan palm or Spanish reed) is a plant with liana-like stems that originated in Asia. The material is light, strong and easy to bend: ideal for making furniture. Initially, rattan furniture was imported from Indonesia in the Netherlands. But a smart entrepreneur in the Netherlands saw that he could also make this type of furniture closer to home. This is how the Jonkers brothers started the Dutch rattan industry in Noordwolde, Friesland. In their factory called Rohé, they used imported rattan, but also local reeds. What started on a small scale at the beginning of the 20th century grew into a furniture industry with a large international sales market after the Second World War.

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Good design makes the difference

During the reconstruction period, the brothers realized that they could distinguish themselves from other furniture makers with good design. With the arrival of Dirk van Sliedregt as chief designer at Rohé in 1949, rattan furniture was taken to a higher level. He was able to link the material rattan to the modernist design principles of the time. Van Sliedregt continued to work for the firm for thirty years and designed around 250 pieces of furniture during that time.

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New and modern, but not too

What Van Sliedregt managed to do with Rohé turned out to be an excellent fit for the zeitgeist. Rattan caught on because it was easy and cheap, but also in line with the principles of Good Living: light, air and space. Rattan was new and modern for many people, but not too much. And although rattan furniture looks considerably less sleek than much of the modernist furniture of the time, it proved to be the right bridge between the idealistic principles of Good Living and the prevailing tastes of many people.

As part of the SuperWest exhibition in 2022, we are putting a building in the spotlight this month! And the porch flat, a typical 1950s form of living. Within Amsterdam's General Expansion Plan, the porch flat was a popular urban planning element. And although several portico flats have been demolished in recent years due to poor maintenance, there are also good examples of maintaining this form of housing in Nieuw-West. Some have the status of a protected cityscape, such as the flats between the Burgemeester van Tienhovengracht (Gerbrandypark) and Burgemeester Vening Meineszlaan. Some are still in 'original' (restored) condition, such as the porch flat on Freek Oxstraat where the Van Eesteren Museum House is located. Others have been completely modernized, such as the 1956 portico flat on U.J. Klarenstraat.

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The porch flat in the AUP

The portico flats in Nieuw-West saw the light of day thanks to the AUP. The General Enlargement Plan (AUP) was set up in 1934 to build homes for the growing number of residents in Amsterdam. The urban expansion was finally realized after the Second World War and was mainly planned on the west side of the city. New residential areas were built here according to the renewed ideas of Het Nieuwe Bouwen. As a form of living, the porch flat had many advantages that were in line with the views of the architects and urban planners of the time about “light, air and space”.

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A flat for different target groups

The success of the porch flat had everything to do with the floor plan of the houses. Indeed, in the porch flat, a house consisted of rectangular spaces focused on the front or rear façade. These spaces came in different widths, depending on the function. The layout provided a basis for sliding. This created a lot of design freedom, resulting in beautiful variants of home plans. The variety in the width of the spaces made it possible to create different types of homes for different target groups within one porch flat.

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features

A porch apartment is characterized by a communal porch with a front door to the street, which provides access to the communal staircase. To the left and right of the stairwell are houses, often mirrored, and usually up to four floors high.

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The 1952 Van Eesteren Museum House on Freek Oxstraat is also a porch house and was designed by architectural firm Nielsen, Spruit and Van de Kuilen. Unfortunately, the porch apartment has also come into a bad light in recent years, due to the poor maintenance of many homes. A growing number of porch flats in Nieuw-West has therefore made way for new buildings..

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A successful transformation

A group of thirty buyers around ten years ago proved that portico flats deserve more appreciation, and that demolition is certainly not the only option, but that preservation can actually result in something very beautiful. They know how to prevent the demolition of a porch apartment on the U.J. Klarenstraat in Nieuw-West by buying it from housing corporation De Alliantie and transforming it into modern homes. It is the first post-war portico building in the Netherlands to be renovated under collective private commissioning (CPO). The 1956 building, designed by Ernest Groosman, originally consisted of forty identical 75m2 portico flats. After the transformation, between 2012 and 2015, the building contains thirty homes that range in area from 40 to 190 m2. The successful transformation was nominated for several awards and was the winner of the Amsterdam Architecture Award 2015.

Pastoe furniture is an integral part of the ideas of the Goed Wonen Foundation. The museum received a special table through a donation: the TB35 Table, designed by Cees Braakman for Pastoe.

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History

A museum home from the 1950s is not complete without Pastoe furniture. In addition to this TB35 table, a wire steel stool and two Pastoe wire steel chairs (replicas) are also part of our collection. The history of this iconic furniture company dates back to 1913, when it was founded under the name Utrechtsche Machinale Stoel- en Meubelfabriek (UMS). UMS mainly produced wooden furniture, in a style that was considered old-fashioned after the Second World War. During the reconstruction period, the company is therefore making a change. In 1948, designer Cees Braakman (1917-1995) took over from his father as manager and designer and renamed the factory (UMS) Pastoe after the French passe-partout (literally: master key). Simplicity and functionality were paramount to Cees Braakman and, based on these design principles, he made Pastoe one of the best-known furniture manufacturers of the 50s and 60s.

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Curved multiplex

An important influence in Braakman's designs is the work of architects Charles & Ray Eames, the design duo he met during a trip to America. He is inspired by their experiments with new materials, such as wire steel and plywood, and techniques for bending furniture into curved shapes. This inspiration, combined with his love for a modernist design language, resulted in typical Pastoe furniture such as birch tables, modular cabinets and wire steel chairs. With this practical furniture that consumers could also assemble and expand themselves, Pastoe seamlessly matched the ideas of the Goed Wonen Foundation. Pastoe furniture was therefore frequently promoted in the Goed Wonen Magazine.

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For four or six people

Cees Braakman designed the TB35 round table in 1958. Entirely in accordance with the guidelines of Goed Wonen, it is a multifunctional piece of furniture that can be adapted to the size of the group. Basically, the table is suitable for four people, but thanks to the fold-out shelf, it offers space for two additional people. The table was part of the Birch Series; a series of furniture made of birch plywood. The different layers of plywood are beautifully visible in the layered table top that slopes at the bottom. The material is of good quality and has a naturally stylish look. It is a simple table that allows you to go in all directions around the house.

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A table with multiple lives

The copy that was recently donated to the museum has already had many phases of life. The donor grew up with it: it was the dining table that was purchased by his parents after their marriage. Later, in his student years, the table moved with him. Back then, it was just 'a' table, nothing special. The table withstood several moves, but eventually ended up in the attic. Although the TB35 is now a vintage design classic and has many fans, the donor decided not to sell the table, but to donate it to the Van Eesteren Museum.

Fortunately, now that the temperatures are rising in the spring, the cold winter feels far away. But because the sun doesn't always shine, we're spotlighting a technological alternative: the Philips Infraphil 7529, designed by Charlotte Perriand. In the winters of the 1950s, cold (and the fight against it) was part of daily life for many in the Netherlands. After a hard day's work, stiff muscles could use some relief, and Philips cleverly capitalized on this by launching a handy infrared lamp.

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The sunshine in the house

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'The “Infraphil” helps with inflammations, bruises, injuries, muscle aches and many other conditions and can be used for both adults and children! Animals are also treated successfully. In addition, you can use the “Infraphil” for beauty treatment, massage and sports. '

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For example, in the 1950s, Philips announced their Infraphil 7529, as can be read in the original user manual. This infrared heat lamp for therapeutic light therapy promised not only to provide relaxation, but also to alleviate medical complaints. Infrared light for use in the home was a 'discovery' because, unlike a hot water bottle, infrared light easily shines through the skin on underlying muscles and joints. In this way, stiff muscles could be tackled more effectively. At that time, Philips was the leader in lighting and luminaires and famous worldwide for its light bulb. To maintain market share, the company was constantly looking for product innovations. Thanks to the emerging welfare society of the 1950s, there was more and more room for many to spend on buying consumer items that made life more fun or easier. For example, household appliances, such as the vacuum cleaner, and personal care products, such as the hair dryer, were popular and Philips also saw an emerging market in health products. With the Infraphil, Philips decided to combine its own technology expertise and leadership in light with the power of good design.

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Dutch technology meets French design

While Philips already had the technology and production knowledge in-house, the company knew that a successful product also requires good design. For a design for this infrared lamp, they asked French designer Charlotte Perriand. Perriand was convinced of the power of good design for a “better” world and “better” people. The Japanese “power of omission”, natural materials and artisanal manufacturing processes had a great influence on her work. Philips saw her talent and asked her in 1952 to translate the technical innovations in the field of infrared light into a handy design that would also entice 'ordinary' households to buy. none high-end product for people with higher incomes, but an everyday product for the emerging middle class.

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Practical

The result was the Infraphil 7529, a lamp that was both practical and recognisable with a futuristic look. Perriand did not put the technology (the infrared lamp itself) away, but made it the starting point of the design. Like a big spotlight, she placed the lamp on a round base and placed it in the middle of a red circle. That circle brought the separate elements together, but also kept the design light. The flexibility was important: the lamp can be rotated 360 degrees on the base and tiltable thanks to the ring. This allows it to be rotated and used at any desired angle. Because the lamp is an enormous source of heat, some caution was necessary; it was therefore recommended not to use it for more than 30 minutes in a row.

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Good design at an affordable price

The concept of infrared heat for muscle relaxation is still popular today. Under the heading 'pain relief''Philips still sells the Infraphil lamps, but with a new design. Thanks to the successful combination of technology and design, the original Infraphil 7529 has become a typical vintage (design) classic. Charlotte Perriand's design is still available as a second-hand one, and for not too much money. For those who don't want an infrared lamp but love this design: by replacing the socket with a modern version, you can also use it as a regular lamp.

The Weckpot is a glass jar with a strawberry as the logo, reminding us of times when you ate seasonal vegetables and preparing your potted food for the winter; a season with only a limited supply of fresh fruit and vegetables.

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What is wecken?

First, the basics. Wecking is a method to make fruit and vegetables last longer. This is done by using a glass (weck) jar, which is sealed airtight with a lid and a rubber ring so that bacteria cannot enter the pot. It is a French method invented at the end of the 18th century for the military. The food is heated in glass jars, with the lid and the rubber ring on, in a pan of boiling water. Cooking time and temperature depend on the type and amount of food to be preserved. When the jars cool down afterwards, a vacuum is created in the pot and the contents are sealed airtight. As a result, the content can be kept almost indefinitely. When the contents are allowed to be consumed, pull the tab attached to the rubber ring to let air into the pot and break the vacuum. This allows the jar to be opened. A century after the method was invented in France, German entrepreneur Johann Carl Weck patented the method and opened a factory for the large-scale production of glass jars in 1900. With his simple jars with the famous strawberry logo, Weck made the technology widely accessible and preserving food became a standard method in the kitchens of the first half of the twentieth century.

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Kentry

In the 50s and 60s, wecking was daily practice; especially in households with their own fruit and/or vegetable garden. In the mid-1950s, however, this changed when the first supermarkets opened. They sold fruit and vegetables, already frozen or canned, ready to eat in cans or glasses, which quickly became popular. This gradual change, which happened more rapidly in the city than outside it, is reflected when you open old cookbooks from before and after the Second World War. For example, editions from the 1930s are still full of recipes for preserving and preserving. It even says under the headline: “Rules for bottling (sterilizing and pasteurizing). Rule 1: For bottles, preferably use those from the Weck system. ' A new era has clearly begun in the Wannée cookbook from the 1960s. There is still a chapter dedicated to preserving and preserving, but it is considerably more concise and also opens as follows: “Now that such good canned, glass or frozen foods are available for sale, preserving will be limited to your own harvest”. And later, under the same “Rules for content” mentioned above, there is the rather humorous comment: “for those who still want to do this”.
(Source: Wannée, C.J. (ninth improved edition). Amsterdam Housekeeping School cookbook. Amsterdam.)

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35 heads of lettuce

Despite the increasing popularity of ready-made cans and jars in supermarkets, the preserving jar and its contents have a place in the collective memory of the generation that grew up in the 1950s. And that's no wonder, because many ate soaked fruit and vegetables every winter, all winter long. So what did you preserve? In principle, anything is possible, as long as you stick to one of the three methods: either you use heating and sterilization (wecking), or you extract the moisture present (drying), or you add sugar, salt, vinegar or alcohol (preserving). Examples include string beans, capuchins, endives, carrots, plums and (stewed) pears. Also, only one type of fruit or vegetable was usually put in the same pot, no combinations, that's more of a thing of the past. The old recipes also make it clear that you were not going to work with one or two pots, but that you were making large quantities at the same time. 15 kilos of string beans, 35 heads of lettuce: it was not time for half measures. By the way, a nice fact is that the wecken is classified as a Unesco Intangible Heritage. So plenty of reasons to keep this unique part of our history alive with an original recipe.

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String Beans Recipe

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Necessities:

• 15 kilos of string beans

• preserving bottles

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Peel the string beans twice on each side, wash them and cut them into thin strips with a string bean knife or grinder. Boil them in boiling water for 10 minutes. Let them drain. Then stamp them firmly into the well-cleaned bottles up to four cm below the rim with the appropriate pestle. Pour in as much of the cooking liquid until the beans are just covered. Add some salt if you want. Close the bottles with a rubber ring, lid and clip and boil them for 1.5 to 2 hours in boiling water, which must always be refilled just below the edge of the bottles. Let them cool down with the clip, take off the clips and put a label with name and date on them.

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(Source: Wannée, C.J. (ninth improved edition). Amsterdam Housekeeping School cookbook. Amsterdam.)

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If, as you read, you wondered what “the intended pistil” is? Then you are not alone; we are too. If you know the answer, or even have a copy, we'd love to hear from you.

With spring on the doorstep, we take a trip outside, in Mien Ruys' garden. Because the modern, functional ideals were also implemented in the city gardens of Het Nieuwe Bouwen. In the 1950s, landscape architect Mien Ruys designed green gardens for 'ordinary' people.

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'Bielzen Mine'

Mien Ruys (1904-1999) was one of the Netherlands' best-known (female) landscapers of the last century. She found her equal in the architects of Het Nieuwe Bouwen and worked frequently with them. She was famous for her so-called ready-to-wear borders and the use of gravel tiles and wooden ties to create straight lines in garden design. It is also known as 'the Gerrit Rietveld of gardens', or 'Bielzen Mien'. Sounding nicknames that clearly express her relevance and distinctive approach to landscape architecture.

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Green for ordinary people

Ruys was instilled in her love for plants and greenery at a young age by her father, owner of Royal Moerheim Nursery in Dedemsvaart. After graduating from high school, Ruys decided to become a landscape designer, a profession for which there was no official education in the Netherlands in the early 1920s, and certainly not for women. She learned the trade through internships, including with the English landscape designer Gertrude Jekyll, and by making drawings and designs for wealthy customers of her father's nursery. From 1933, a new chapter in her career began when she was allowed to design the communal courtyard of the Geuzenhof, a social housing project in Amsterdam-West. Here she was finally able to express her ideals. 'I wanted to make functional green for ordinary people', Ruys once said in an interview. A private garden was (and is) inaccessible to many city residents. For Ruys, “communal gardens”, green in the vicinity of the home, were the solution. In this way, city residents who lived in an upstairs apartment were also able to enjoy the benefits of a garden. After the Amsterdam Geuzenhof, Ruys received orders from private housing associations for communal gardens in various housing projects.

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Collaborating with 'de 8': Nagele and Bergeijk

When Mien Ruys met several members of designers and architects from 'de 8' Amsterdam and 'de Opbouw' Rotterdam in 1943, she found like-minded people to work with on total modernistic concepts for gardens. She became a member of 'de 8' and thus became involved in the construction and construction of the village of Nagele in the reclaimed Noordoostpolder in 1954-1955. To protect against the wind in the polder, she designed a so-called windsingel around the village in the shape of a recreational forest with native trees. At that time, she also worked with Gerrit Rietveld on the design for De Ploeg weaving mill in Bergeijk, with plenty of space for greenery around the factory. This was followed by several other garden designs for factories and companies, including Van Nelle in Rotterdam and Tomado in Etten-Leur.

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Journal Our Private Garden‍

In 1950, Ruys married publisher Theo Moussault. Together, they founded the quarterly magazine. Our Private Garden on. In this magazine, Ruys shared her knowledge about plants and landscape architecture. An important principle of Ruys was that the plants had to be adapted to the local soil and not vice versa. In so-called testing grounds, she studied color combinations over the seasons, leaf discoloration, naturalization and the effects of light and shade in the garden, among other things.

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Modernist urban gardens

In the 1950s, Mien Ruys not only designed for companies and factories, but she also worked on small urban gardens for the homes that were completed in large numbers during the reconstruction. Especially for this purpose, she came up with gardens with so-called “ready-to-wear borders”. Ruys was inspired by prefabricated construction and derived the name from the fashion world where ready-to-wear appeared in the 1950s. Ready-to-wear borders are standard borders of strong, healthy perennials with a long flowering period. The borders were for sale at her father's nursery. All you had to do was specify the wishes and the circumstances and the plants were delivered in crates, including a planting plan and maintenance instructions. This included the characteristic diagonal path where the tiles do not lie contiguously, but are separated by a strip of grass. This created a spatial effect. The gardens were simple but functional and contained many perennials. Ruys also introduced the use of railway ties, gravel tiles and decking. This has spread rapidly and widely and these elements were among the standard elements of Dutch gardens for decades. With her modernist and geometric garden designs, Ruys became famous at home and abroad.

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In the style of

The garden of the Van Eesteren Museum House is an urban garden as Mien Ruys could have designed it. Whether she actually designed it is impossible to say; there is no evidence that Ruys designed the block's gardens on Freek Oxstraat. We strive to design the garden in line with Mien Ruys' ideas as much as possible.

Ariadne inspireerde in de jaren 50 vele vrouwen om met modieuze patronen voor haak-, brei en borduurwerk aan de slag te gaan. Handwerken was destijds een belangrijke vaardigheid voor vrouwen en het tijdschrift Ariadne stimuleerde velen om hier de eigen creativiteit op los te laten.

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Tijdschriften wonnen vanaf het begin van de twintigste eeuw snel aan populariteit. Ze werden een medium waarmee vooral vrouwelijke doelgroepen werden aangesproken. Damesbladen zijn een begrip geworden en voor ieder (sub)thema is wel een blad te vinden: mode, interieur, koken, maar ook werk, geaardheid en kinderen. Vooral in de periode 1950-1990/2000 waren bladen ongelofelijk populair. Enkele van de oudste en bekendste zijn Libelle en Margriet, maar ook de Ariadne was geliefd. Wat begon als Het tijdschrift voor handwerken werd in de jaren 50 onder de titel Ariadne een populair naslagwerk voor haak-, brei-, en borduurpatronen.

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Bladen als Ariadne pasten precies in het tijdsbeeld van de jaren 50. Een tijd waarin haken, breien en borduren behoorden tot de vaste vaardigheden en werkzaamheden van meisjes en huisvrouwen. Meisjes keken de kunst af bij hun moeders en kregen les erin op school. Op de huishoudschool – waar jonge vrouwen werden voorbereid op een baan als huishoudster of op de rol van huisvrouw – leerden ze hun technieken verder te perfectioneren. Huisvrouwen pasten het handwerken dagelijks toe in het gezinsleven. Denk aan het breien van sokken, het stoppen van gaten in truien, het naaien van een trappelzak, het versieren van een babylakentje, of het keren van een versleten winterjas. Het beheersen van deze technieken werd echter niet alleen gezien als praktische vaardigheid; de kwaliteit van het werk zou ook iets zeggen over het karakter van de vrouw waarmee men van doen had. Zo dacht men aan de nauwkeurigheid van het handwerk te kunnen aflezen hoe netjes de vrouw in kwestie was. Dankzij tijdschriften als Ariadne werden deze vaardigheden niet alleen verbeterd en verfijnder, maar ook steeds modieuzer. Dat zie je ook af aan de covers van het tijdschrift die door de jaren heen steeds meer gaan aansluiten op trends en ontwikkelingen uit modesteden als Parijs en New York.

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Het maandblad Ariadne publiceerde steeds nieuwe borduur-, brei- en haakpatronen en bevatte een handige inhoudsopgave die was gesorteerd op de te gebruiken techniek. Gehaakte pannenlappen, kruikenzakken en gordijntjes waren populaire werkjes om te maken. Ook werden er ideeën voor babykleding en knuffels gedeeld, voor een leuk kraamcadeautje bijvoorbeeld. Hoewel het tijdschrift heel populair was, was niet elke lezer(es) even getalenteerd. Vaak genoeg zag het werkje er op het plaatje makkelijk uit, maar was het in de praktijk een stuk moeilijker te maken. Menig werkje belandde onafgewerkt onder in de kast.

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Naast handwerken was het zelf maken van kleding ook ongekend populair. Dat was de reden voor de lancering van een ander blad halverwege de jaren 50, getiteld: Burda (van Duitse uitgevers). Dankzij de Ariadne en de Burda konden vrouwen zich met allerlei naai- en handwerktechnieken storten op modieuze creaties, zowel in kleding als het interieur. In een tijd waarin veel gezinnen nog zuinig moesten zijn, maakten deze zelfmaak-tijdschriften het mogelijk voor vrouwen hun creativiteit en modebewustzijn te ontwikkelen, zonder hun spaarzaamheid op te geven.

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Sinds de jaren 50 zijn de ideeën over de de rol van de vrouw (gelukkig) behoorlijk veranderd en dat zie je terug in de onderwerpen die in de tijdschriften besproken worden. Vrouwen zijn niet meer per definitie voorbestemd huisvrouw te worden en  tijd voor handwerken is er voor de meesten niet meer bij. En hoewel hobbymatig enkele handwerktechnieken weer aan populariteit winnen, zoals het breien, is het idee dat iedere vrouw moet kunnen handwerken, passe. Dat heeft ook de focus van Ariadne doen veranderen. Waar het tijdschrift in de jaren 80 nog floreerde met patronen voor oversized truien in fluoriserende kleuren, publiceert het tegenwoordig alleen nog zelfmaaktips voor het interieur. De uitgever heeft afscheid genomen van het handwerken en richt zich onder de nieuwe titel Ariadne at Home nu volledig op design en wonen.

In 1952, none other than Queen Juliana smoked a cigarette in one of the portico houses in Slotermeer when she opened this new neighborhood. The story of “Juliana's butt” is not only an amusing historical story, but also a typical example of the role that cigarettes played in everyday life in the 1950s.

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Juliana's dick

The opening of Garden City Slotermeer in 1952, the first of the Western Garden Cities, was widely reported in the news. The reconstruction in the Netherlands had picked up steam and the ruins of the Second World War were exchanged for new homes. “The Netherlands is rising!” , was the message. To emphasize national solidarity, the government and the municipality of Amsterdam had thought it would be good if the queen visited a very ordinary family at the opening of this new Amsterdam neighborhood. The opening took place on October 7, 1952 and Queen Juliana cut a ribbon on the bridge that connects the Bos en Lommerweg to the Burgemeester de Vlugtlaan. After that, she visited 'the first residents', the Reusch family, for tea. This family had moved to Slotermeer more than a week earlier. Their floor in the Jan Pieter Heijestraat in Amsterdam had become too tight with three children and the space of the new Slotermeer beckoned.

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The Queen's visit to this “ordinary family” is exactly in line with the etiquette of the 1950s. The visit lasted one hour and had two cups of tea and served shortbread. And: during her visit, the queen smoked one cigarette, indoors with the Reusch family. A press photo was taken of this scene: a smoking, tea-drinking queen visiting a 1950s porch house. The butt remained in the ashtray and was kept by Mrs. Reusch for years to come, as a tangible reminder of the moment. Later, she threw it away when she moved. The hat has therefore not become a collection item of the Van Eesteren Museum, but the photo of the moment has been nicely placed in the hall of the museum home.

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The paragraph above is based on the interview that magazine Our Amsterdam had with Mrs. Reusch. The full story (recommended!) can be read on the website of Our Amsterdam red.)

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Cigarette glasses

That Queen Juliana and public square smoking a cigarette is impossible to imagine now, but it was very common at the time. Cigarettes were an integral part of daily life and the harmful effects of smoking on health were far from as well known as they are today. Everyone and everywhere smoked; men or women, young and old, at home, at work, in the café, at the hairdresser, on the train or bus, or even openly on television. Children also came into contact with it from an early age. For them, there was even a special version of chocolate. Smoking was just part of it and was “fun”. A good hostess therefore made sure that there was always a glass of cigarettes on the table when visiting or parties. In no time, the room was blue with smoke. On special occasions, the luxury lighter was also removed, just like a beautiful ashtray.

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From functional to functionless

The glass for the cigarettes, the ashtray, the machine you could use to turn cigarettes yourself: all objects that were used to smoke and that could make smoking stylish. However, when the adverse effects of smoking on health were demonstrated from the 1970s onwards, the role of these objects in daily life slowly changed. From the 1990s, smoking was gradually banned in many public places: the workplace, public transport, theaters, amusement parks, cafes and more. The image of smoking changed for many people and the number of smokers in the Netherlands has been declining annually since then. Smoking-related objects have thus lost their function for more and more people. However, they still remain important for the context of the 1950s and they also bring back old memories to many visitors in the museum home.

Art or kitsch? This time we are looking at a work of art, or rather: a reproduction of a work of art, namely the Deer with young by painter and master forger Han van Meegeren. This is also a collection of the Van Eesteren Museum. This picture was certainly not good living responsibly, but it was typical of the 1950s.

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About Han van Meegeren

Han van Meegeren (1889-1947) was a painter who mainly made a name for himself as a master forger. Even as a child, Van Meegeren had a great love for drawing and painting, but his environment did not see this as a serious career opportunity. He ended up at a technical course where he left prematurely after a few years. Although he had no art education, Van Meegeren chose to become a painter. In his younger years, he painted his own works in the style of the old masters, such as Johannes Vermeer and Frans Hals. Very meritorious, because his portraits and still lifes were initially widely reproduced and sold. Critics and colleagues, however, were negative about his work and, in order to teach them a lesson, Van Meegeren began to meticulously recreate paintings. What started as an exercise grew into a serious scandal with which he managed to deceive the art world for years.

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Juliana's deer

The deer that Van Meegeren drew in 1921 was an original work and was a great success. It reportedly hung on the wall in one out of five households in the country before the Second World War. The story goes that Van Meegeren made this drawing of a deer in just ten minutes. In 1921, he taught drawing and painting in his studio in The Hague, located opposite Huis ten Bosch. A popular topic was drawing the “Juliana's deer” that lived there in the gardens. Because the students found it not so easy to get this moving animal properly on paper, Van Meegeren set a good example. What was special was that he used a technique of shadow effects to show how you can use it to suggest shape. He drew a picture of the deer alone, and a version of the deer with youngs. Both drawings became the most famous in Han van Meegeren's oeuvre. They were reprinted in large quantities and thus found their way into the living rooms; even before the Second World War, but certainly also in the reconstruction period afterwards.

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Bad living according to Good Living

“Combat the kitsch” is the title of an article in the January 1954 issue of the monthly magazine. Good Living. You don't have to study the ideas of the Goed Wonen Foundation for long to know that such a romantic and sweet picture as Han van Meegeren's was out of the question for the members of Good Living. In addition to the fact that the foundation promoted “good living”, she said there was also what people had to oppose: poor living. According to Goed Wonen, bad living was everything from “grandmother's time”: table rugs, heavy oak furniture and decorative frills. This could not boost the modern era. In the new society that Goed Wonen envisioned after the Second World War, the focus was on light, air and space, on modern, sleek and multifunctional furniture and on industrial materials. Good Living was not only a vision of beautiful products and interior, but even more a vision of building a new, better society with 'good' people.

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Not cozy

It was an impressive vision to elevate people through good design. But in practice, this idea only caught on with a very small group. Good Living was seen as elitist. Most people simply did not like that sleek design and generally simply did not have the desire, time or financial resources to purchase such a new interior. It Deer and Deer with young van Van Meegeren, on the other hand, did reach a very large group of people. It was accessible, inexpensive (high print runs of reproduction) and a timeless picture. That was a pain in the side of the members of Goed Wonen, but it struck just the right chord for many 'ordinary' people.

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Art for the masses

With his deer, painter and forger Han van Meegeren succeeded in bringing art into the living rooms of 'ordinary' people. A goal that many designers and artists set for themselves, but only a few achieve. Until the 70s of the last century, Deer and Deer with Young popular works of art for the average living room or bedroom and even in 2021, it has become a vintage icon for many young people. It definitely belongs in a museum house about the 1950s, but are we talking about art or kitsch here?

What actually makes a product valuable? And when do you cherish something? Is that only determined by the price tag, or does the design, personal memory or history of the product also play a role? For example, the rod lamp that Jan Hoogervorst designed for ANVIA in the 1960s is not only a design classic because of its smart design, but has a story behind it that you won't let go.

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The turbulent past in a nutshell

The history of this lamp starts in 1906 in Berlin. There, entrepreneur Max Liebert runs a successful business until Hitler came to power in 1933. Liebert and his family, all of Jewish origin, are struggling and are forced to cede two of their three factories to Hitler's government. They decide to move their last factory to the then still safe Netherlands and opt for the city of Almelo. The new company will be registered under the name Algemeene Nederlandsche Verlichtindustrie Almelo (ANVIA for short). But unfortunately, history repeats itself soon: in 1940, Hitler occupied the Netherlands and it became very dangerous for Jews here too. Two years later, the family is forced to relinquish the company again and shortly thereafter, Max Liebert, his wife and son are transported to concentration camps and killed there.

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Reconstruction

That could have meant the end of ANVIA, but Liebert's daughter and her husband survived the Second World War. After the war, they built the company from the ground up and made ANVIA the successful lighting manufacturer known for its modern designs. After the many setbacks for the family and the company before and during the Second World War, prosperity followed in the reconstruction period.

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Jan Hoogervorst and the revolution in the living room

Hoogervorst was an artisan with an excellent sense of proportion and a strong preference for functional design in its purest form. He designed various lamps for ANVIA, of which the rod lamp has become the most famous. With the 1506, the official name of the rod lamp, Hoogervorst consciously came up with a new type of ceiling lamp: one that seamlessly matched Goed Wonen's “multifunctionality” premise. The standard ceiling light from that time was a fixed point of light in the middle of the room. Did you want to make use of the light? Then you had to sit under the lamp. Hoogervorst's goal was also to illuminate the room, but he wanted to be able to illuminate multiple locations with one light point. That's why he came up with this “hengel lamp”: a lamp on a movable rod that is connected to a fixed point but can still turn in any direction, whether you're reading a book on the couch or playing a game at the table. The lampshade can also rotate: when you turn the shade down, you give the person under the lamp extra light. When you raise the shade, the lamp shines against the ceiling and the light spreads over the entire room. With these smart solutions, Hoogervorst came up with a lamp that adapts to you!

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A new chapter‍

Fast forward to the 80s. After a successful time, the company is in trouble again and finally goes bankrupt. However, this is not the end of ANVIA either. In 2014, entrepreneur Michel Klein plunged into the company's history out of love for Hoogervorst's designs. He manages to make contact with the descendants of Liebert's daughter and gets permission to market re-editions of the famous Hoogervorst lamps. Under the name ANVIA BV, Klein brings new fame to the classic Hoogervorst designs and adds a new chapter to the company's turbulent history. Those interested in Hoogervorst's rod lamp in 2021 can choose between the original model from the 1960s and the new edition of ANVIA BV.

They are also known as the Rolls Royces of stoves: quality and aesthetics come together perfectly in the stoves at De Koninklijke Haardenfabriek E.M. Jaarsma. Now that the days are getting shorter and we are turning up the heating in the house a few degrees again, it is time to turn this heater off.

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Firm Jaarsma

Before we dive into history, something needs to be clarified about the company Jaarsma. Indeed, there are two of them: two stove manufacturers with the same last name. One is E.M Jaarsma (Everhardus Mennes Jaarsma), the other is Jan Jaarsma. Jan and Everhardus were brothers and each built their own company separately. The Jan Jaarsma factory was located in Scheveningen and later merged with the company DRU. But since the stove in the Van Eesteren Museum collection is an E.M. Jaarsma, we are focusing on this company. Indeed, in the first half of the last century, the Koninklijke Haardenfabriek E.M. Jaarsma was also by far the best-known manufacturer of heaters in the Netherlands. The Jaarsma stoves were produced in various styles, from modernist to art nouveau, made of cast iron and decorated with or without ironwork. They were called the “Rolls Royces under the stoves.” The Jaarsma factory started as a hardware factory in 1868 in Sneek, Friesland. In 1904, founder E.M. Jaarsma decided to move the factory to Hilversum; there was a larger sales market in het Gooi and near major cities. Once based in Hilversum, E.M Jaarsma resigns to make way for his sons who continue the factory. At that time, the stoves were mainly fired with coal and sometimes with oil.

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Living room as a central place in the home

Until the end of the 1950s, the coal stove was the norm in every household. People usually had one copy in the living room. As a result, the living room was nice and warm, and this was the space where the family came together to eat, play, read, sew or listen to the radio. In the Van Eesteren Museum House, the stove is therefore located in this central location.

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Mica squares

The one in the museum house is a very luxurious model that is very responsible for Good Living; beautifully round and made of shiny steel with little frills. However, many people who grew up at that time remember a simpler black and square model, with so-called mica squares. Mica is a mineral that is resistant to high temperatures and is therefore suitable as a fireplace glass. The color is brown, but transparent, so you could see through the windows whether the coals were still burning. Of course, a coal stove also included a coal kit. A coal kit is a type of bucket, specially made to bring coal from the coal house ─ that was elsewhere in the house ─ to the coal stove. With the ash from the stove, the sidewalks were made ice and snow free in the winter.

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From coal to gas

In 1963, an important discovery was made in Groningen: an enormous natural gas field is located in the soil there. With Slochteren's so-called gas bubble, an endless source of natural gas seems to have been tapped into. This discovery marks the end of coal stoves, because since the mid-1960s, the Netherlands switched en masse to natural gas. Coal stoves made way for gas heaters that were connected to the gas pipeline that was being built all over the Netherlands. Natural gas was cheaper, cleaner and saved families time: it was considerably less hassle to turn on the gas stove than the coal stove.

With the 535 coffee table, Gispen launched a piece of furniture in 1953 that, thanks to its minimalist shape and practical nature, has become timeless and popular. The smart design on tall, slim legs also earned the table an appropriate nickname: the Mug.

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The early years

The Gispen company was founded in 1916 by Willem Hendrik Gispen. He initially started his career by producing innovative lighting fixtures. The glass lampshades with metal pendants were a resounding success in the 1920s. From 1929, he expanded the collection to include furniture designs, but unfortunately, the firm went bankrupt in the crisis years of the 1930s. The company was relaunched after the Second World War, but Willem Hendrik Gispen himself was no longer part of it. Nevertheless, the relaunched company Gispen managed to re-establish itself as a manufacturer of quality furniture even without the founder.

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Gispen is Good Living

The original ideas with which Gispen was founded in the 1920s, namely bringing light and airy furniture to the market, were seamlessly in line with the ideas of the Goed Wonen Foundation during the reconstruction period. Gispen was therefore quickly described by the foundation as “good”. From the 1950s, a new, young designer was hired for the furniture design department. Thanks to its fresh perspective and love for the use of industrial materials, the Gispen company launched several iconic pieces of furniture, such as the 535 coffee table, in the 1950s and 1960s.

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Solid, practical and cheap

That new designer at Gispen was Wim Rietveld, the son of renowned architect Gerrit Rietveld. Wim Rietveld joined Gispen after graduating from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague. He was good at combining functionality and aesthetics and simplifying production techniques. His motto was: good shape, solid, practical and cheap. Based on these principles, he designed the 535 coffee table in 1953.

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The Mug

Although the coffee table looks simple, it is a design with a clear function and vision for the modern era of the 1950s. Wim Rietveld gave the design no name but only a product number, as was usual with all other Gispen furniture. But the popular 535 coffee table quickly got an appropriate nickname based on its shape, the Mug.

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Glass and steelWith this coffee table, Rietveld already showed at the beginning of the 1950s that materials such as glass and metal are ideal for interiors. For example, he used solid round steel, a type of metal rod, for the legs of the coffee table. This material is solid and therefore easy to bend when heated. In addition, this technique was simple and cheap. The choice of materials provided space for new options for form and production. The design of a steel frame with three tall legs that are curved at the top makes the table light and airy: you can see under and through it from all sides. The glass table top enhances this effect so that the table almost seems to blend into the room. Under the glass table top, a small simple metal plate with a raised edge serves as a storage space for magazines, but it can also be used as a tray. De Mug was one of Rietveld's first designs for the Gispen company. In this single piece of furniture, he perfectly combined the different facets of Gispen's vision of furniture and what they can mean in the interior.

In the 1950s, the bathroom was a small space where a lot had to be done. This was cleverly addressed. This completely new product was a godsend at the time; you could use it to freshen up, bathe the kids and do laundry. However, you won't find it in today's bathrooms anymore.

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Multifunctional washbasin

If you look at the bathrooms in social housing in the 1950s from a contemporary perspective, you will see a small space with a huge sink. Very different from what we are used to now, but it was a big leap forward then. Before the Second World War, only a few houses had their own bathroom. After the war, bathrooms were installed in the newly built houses, often social housing. Personal hygiene became important, but space in the home was still limited. The wash basin was a godsend: a wash basin halfway between a sink and a bathtub.

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Convenient and affordable

The word lavet is derived from the names of the three inventors: Laupman, Vanother door Ethird country Trip. It was a product invented in the Netherlands that was made from ocrit, a form of terrazzo, a material that consists of stone grains encased in white cement. The name ocrit is probably derived from the English word for concrete, concrete. It is a material that was popular at the time because it was very sturdy and could be produced quickly and affordably. Not only was it made of canvas, but also the countertops of the Bruynzeel kitchens. Ocrit factories were located at various locations in the Netherlands, including in Eembrugge and Utrecht.

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How was it used?

The lavet consists of a round, deep tub with a flat part attached to it, for example, to set up a laundry basket. In combination with a geyser, a faucet and a shower head — which were installed above or next to it — the sink could be used as a washbasin, sitz bath, foot bath, shower tray or washbasin. There was also a very modern electronic revolving device that you could place in the well and turn the lavet into a washing machine in one fell swoop. Due to its compact design and various applications, the lavet was very popular.

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The end of the lavet

New materials in the 70s and 80s reduced the demand for ocrit. That meant the demise of ocrit and the clover that was made of it. Due to increasing prosperity in those years, the growing role of personal hygiene and the rise of technological devices such as washing machines, the lavet slowly became obsolete. Nowadays, almost no one has a clover at home.

At first glance, the glass milk bottle seems like just a functional thing that belongs in the kitchen. Yet there is more to this simple object than you might suspect. After all, the designers of the Goed Wonen Foundation saw much more than just something functional in the milk bottle. For them, the milk bottle was the ultimate symbol of the modern era and also served as a test.

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The milkman

In the 1950s, milk was brought home by the milkman. The milkman was not the farmer who owned the cows, but a trader who delivered milk and milk products from farmers and dairies in surrounding regions to people's homes. Milk, buttermilk, yoghurt, custard and other liquid products were supplied in 1 litre glass milk bottles. After the milk products were consumed, the customer returned the empty milk bottles to the milkman. Delivery often took place by neighborhood, by cart or cargo bike. The milkman with milk bottles was an integral part of the daily street scene at that time. And it was thanks to that ordinariness that the milk bottle became a symbol of a certain zeitgeist.

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Deal with the bad taste

This was done by designer Wim den Boon, who, as editor of the magazine Goed Wonen, was an early part of the Goed Wonen Foundation. With the magazine, Stichting Goed Wonen spread its views on interior design for the modern era. Den Boon was convinced of the possibilities of raising people into people with good taste, and for him, that consisted of a sleek interior with multifunctional furniture. He was very excited about the then prevailing taste of the general public and the furniture industry; Persian rugs on the table and a house full of what he called frills. For him, this was “bad taste” and definitely “wrong” and it was a recurring theme in his articles. For example, he wrote: “The design of our home should be the honest expression of our personality and not a featureless collection of banal objects. Conventions and prejudices must be jettisoned; traditions should only be maintained insofar as we still regard them as a reality. '(Good Living, 1948, p. 167).

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Milk bottle test

Den Boon had a rather polite tone and strict vision. Indeed, for him, it was essential to convince the people to make modern choices when it comes to furnishing a home. Before that, he even went so far as to introduce a test: the milk bottle test. The milk bottle test was the way for Den Boon to check whether an interior met the regulations of the Goed Wonen Foundation: “This bottle is just a small thing in our society, yet it is typical of our time, of the state of our hygiene, our economy, our physics and chemistry, the level of our means of transport, of our art, of our social structure, in short: of our entire culture. If this bottle fits into your interior, it means that your interior is in line with our times, that your interior is good. If you think it is definitely necessary to pour the milk into a 'nice' jug first... then there is a mistake somewhere. Or with you, or with your interior. Because the bottle is good. '(Good Living, 1948, p. 88).

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Reflection of society

Den Boon saw the milk bottle as an ultimate product; an exemplary product. It was fellow designer and architect H.P. Berlage who inspired him to do this. During a visit to Egypt, Berlage had seen a woman draw water with a simple jug. In that jug, Berlage saw the entire Egyptian society reflected. The beautiful hand-made shape was perfect and showed the best this society had to offer. This inspired Den Boon to look for such an image for Dutch society, an image in which function, art and technology came together. He found that in the milk bottle. In addition to being a functional object, the milk bottle also became a symbol of the modern era. According to Den Boon, people were able to easily assess whether their interior was' good 'or' wrong 'using the milk bottle test at home.

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Writing history

By the way, the test was never a great success. Den Boon also received a lot of criticism for his very extreme attitude and oppressive tone and was expelled from the foundation. However, he did make history with his milk bottle test, as the milk bottle was regularly featured in later issues of the foundation.

In the 1950s, the kerosene machine played a prominent role in many kitchens. This often involved a kerosene stove by the German manufacturer Haller. You can read below how petroleum cooking went into practice, and why we're not afraid of it in today's kitchens anymore.

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Petroleum cooking

Petroleum is a fuel and is similar to gasoline and kerosene. In the first half of the 20th century, it was used in many households in the Netherlands, mainly for cooking, but also for lighting. Petroleum was very popular before the arrival of natural gas because it was cheap and easily obtainable — at the drugstore or the petroleum guy who came home. Petroleum cooking was done on a kerosene stove. This consisted of an enamelled petroleum reservoir, covered with a plate through which the wick passed and a cast iron attachment for the pans. When the fuse burned, the flame could be turned higher and lower by means of a side regulator. Although there are several manufacturers who made kerosene sets, the pair from the German firm Haller is by far the best-known. Haller released them in red, blue, yellow and green. There is a green kerosene set in our museum home.

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The food

Because petroleum was cheap and the flame of the petroleum stove could easily be turned down, the petroleum machine was extremely suitable for traditional Dutch food. Beef stew could simmer on it for a long time and pears could stew on it for hours. This often happened in gray enamel pans, as they are also seen in the home. One of our housing guides remembers well how his mother served the stew: with green beans in the wet, breadcrumbs and a cooked potato.

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Odour and fire hazard

The fact that meat or pears could simmer on a kerosene stove for a long time also had a number of major disadvantages, namely odour and the risk of fire. Indeed, the smell of petroleum was so penetrating that it was found to stink. And that is quite annoying when the stew has to get up for another whole afternoon. Petroleum also had another major disadvantage, namely that it is flammable. Perhaps you still remember the containers from that time marked “soap”, “sand” and “soda”? These were there to extinguish a fire quickly.

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End of an era

However, the disadvantages of cooking on petroleum also gave way to new innovations. First, there was city gas, for which so-called city gas pipelines were already built when the new districts of Slotermeer and Geuzenveld were built. City gas was coal-derived gas produced in the Westergasfabriek or the Oostergasfabriek. But the city gas was still expensive and not everyone was connected to it. That changed in 1962 with the arrival of Dutch natural gas. With the discovery of the natural gas bubble in Slochteren (Groningen), a new source was tapped, making gas available in large quantities to all Dutch people. It marked the beginning of the end for the kerosene company. The kitchens were now equipped with gas stoves, connected to the natural gas pipeline, which were much safer, cleaner and also did not smell. And although a few still clung to the old-fashioned simmering on petroleum, the much-loved petroleum stove slowly disappeared from everyday life.

Perhaps this is the most surprising object in the museum house. Because while the so-called fly box was still very common in an average household in the 1950s, it is no longer used today. The function of the fly box was to keep provisions cool, dry and free from flies in a sheltered area in the kitchen. You can see it as a precursor to the refrigerator.

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Saved from the landfill

In 2015, a long-cherished wish of the Van Eesteren Museum came true: the Van Eesteren Museum House got a fly box. Wouter de Back, a volunteer at the museum, saw him hanging on his neighbor's balcony. “It was noticeable, such an old-fashioned thing in New Sloten.” When he noticed that his neighbors were moving, he rushed to the street side and was able to tow the cabinet just before the garbage truck.

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Mrs. Zaagsma is the neighbor in question. She likes that the fly box now has a place in the museum home. “We had a fairly small fridge in our previous home. When we moved to Sloten 20 years ago, my husband built that fly box. We mainly added fruit and vegetables. Milk and meat went into the fridge. ' She knew the fly box from her childhood on the Spaarndammerdijk. “You could see them hanging on the balconies everywhere.”

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Natural fridge

What is a fly box? It seems so obvious: milk, meat and vegetables are easy to keep in the fridge these days. But until well into the twentieth century, people in the Netherlands, even in the newly built neighborhoods of Nieuw-West, kept this in a fly box.

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Most people hung their fly boxes on the balcony. There he hung in the shade and air circulation kept the food cool. Because of the mosquito nets, flies were unable to get to food. Plus, you had no food smells in the house like that. Anyone who had a so-called cool room, such as the small room next to the kitchen in the museum house, hung the fly box there. Most people built their own fly boxes, but they were also available ready-made.

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What do you keep in a fly box? Actually, everything we keep in the fridge these days. Butter, cheese, meats, fruit and vegetables, open jars and cliques. A fly box does stop insects but not bacteria. Many products can only be kept for one to two days without refrigeration, but luckily the milkman and the greengrocer came to the door every day. By the way, when it was freezing outside, you couldn't use the fly box, unless you wanted to make ice cubes.

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The end of the fly box

With the introduction of the household refrigerator, the fly box slowly disappeared from the balcony. With an emphasis on slow. Indeed, compared to abroad, the sale of refrigerators in the Netherlands got off to a very slow start. In 1957, only 10 out of 1,000 Dutch people had an electric refrigerator at home, while the European average was 55, with Sweden leading with 187 refrigerators for every 1,000 inhabitants. In the US, sales of household refrigerators started as early as the 1930s and by 1950, more than 90% of the city's households already had refrigerators.

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The purchase price was an important obstacle; in 1950, you paid 645 guilders for a small refrigerator. That was half of the average disposable annual income. When the luxury tax, the tax on luxury goods such as refrigerators, was abolished in 1962, the refrigerator began to advance in our country. Ten years later, 75% of the households have a Philips, Bauknecht or Elektrolux. Albert Heijn's stamp campaign in particular contributed to this; suddenly a refrigerator cost 'only' 252 guilders. Between 1962 and 1974, 145,000 customers saved a fridge this way.

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However, the financial situation is not the main reason for the slow introduction of the refrigerator. Sociologists suspect that one reason may be that the Dutch were simply attached to traditional preservation methods such as preserving, the cellar and... the fly box.

In the 1950s, Coen de Vries designed several pieces of furniture that have now been considered classics. Think of the Toonladder coat rack, his chairs for Gispen or his desks for Eeka. As a member of the Good Living Foundation, he designed sleek, functional and flexible furniture. The Van Eesteren Museum houses various designs by him. The Coen 100a and Coen 100b chairs are unique in the museum's collection. These were designed by De Vries just before his 100th birthday and were specially made for the Van Eesteren Museum.

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De Sleutel: the start of a career

Furniture designer Coen de Vries was born in 1918. After graduating from high school, De Vries had to work. He initially managed to avoid this carefully, but when the war broke out, he had no other choice either. After the demobilization, he chose art school. He studied at the Rietveld Academy Amsterdam, which was then still called the School of Applied Arts. Here he was taught by Mart Stam and Johan Niegeman, iconic designers who were a great role model for him. After his studies, De Vries opened his first interior store, called De Sleutel, in 1947. What started on a small scale with the sale of handicrafts quickly developed into the place where De Vries sold his own furniture. He alternated his own work with imported Scandinavian design and the famous De Ploeg fabrics. His style was very innovative at the time and the store became a real hotspot. That's how he also came into contact with the Goed Wonen Foundation, the foundation that focused on modern interiors in the 1950s.

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Good living according to Coen de Vries

The Goed Wonen Foundation, founded in 1947 as a partnership between architects, interior designers, retailers and producers, was of the opinion that the Dutch people should be educated with 'good' furniture during the reconstruction period. Good furniture, according to this foundation, was sleek, functional and flexible. De Vries' work was seamlessly in line with this philosophy. He strived for good, modern and affordable furniture, because after the Second World War, many families lived in small houses and materials were scarce. De Vries looked for smart solutions and made multifunctional and flexible furniture. An example of such a typical De Vries design is the Toonladder coat rack. A smart coat rack that takes up hardly any space and weighs little due to its simple steel frame. As a result, this coat rack could be hung at the back of a door, for example. In addition, the coat rack has adjustable hooks so that both adults and children can easily access their coats. De Vries initially designed this coat rack as a showcase for a Goed Wonen model home, but the Amsterdam furniture company Pilastro saw more in it. It brought the coat rack to market and the Toonladder was a great success. Today, the Toonladder is still a popular vintage object.

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Prototype for the Van Eesteren Museum

De Vries is best known for his designs from the 50s, 60s and 70s. The museum has several pieces in its collection from that time, including the Toonladder coat rack. However, the Van Eesteren Museum also has a unique set by De Vries in its collection, from a much more recent date. In October 2017, Coen de Vries came to visit the Van Eesteren Museum with friend and architect Jan van den Berg. He was already in old age, but his mind was clearly still young. A year later, that visit resulted in his involvement in the exhibition “Rich Simplicity”, an exhibition about extraordinary interiors from the 1950s, which showed Coen de Vries' home interior and doctor's office. In 1954, Coen de Vries was commissioned by the couple Auke and Wiesje Bult-Vreugde to redesign their nineteenth century home with a doctor's office at Oosterpark in Amsterdam according to the principles of the Good Living Foundation. In 2010, Wiesje Bult-Vreugde donated the interior to the Dutch State and in 2017 it was exhibited in the Van Eesteren Museum exhibition. What was extra special was that de Vries even created new work for this exhibition.. Especially for the Van Eesteren Museum, he designed the Coen 100a and Coen 100b chairs!

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Coen 100a and Coen 100b

Although De Vries was already 100 years old in 2018 and officially stopped releasing collections, in his head, he has always continued to design. As a final wish, he had to make two chairs, of course functional and this time also with bright colors as a starting point. To do this, he was inspired by the artwork De Kat by the famous artist Karel Appel, which hung on the wall at De Vries's home. He did not design the chairs alone; before that, he worked with architect friend Jan van den Berg and two collectors. Furniture maker Sien Entius, who was a trainee furniture maker at the time, made two prototypes of his designs for De Vries: one as a dining chair and one as an armchair. At the opening of the exhibition “Rich Simplicity”, De Vries named the dining chair Coen 100a. He named the armchair Coen 100b. The Van Eesteren Museum has been able to include both prototypes in the collection.

Do you already have plans for Christmas? Do you already know what will be on the table, and, above all, how that table will be decorated? In the museum house, of course, we set the table entirely in the 1950s Christmas spirit, with dishes from Fris Edam and Gero cutlery.

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Zilvium, zilmeta, zilduro

Gero is a Dutch company that manufactures affordable cutlery and tableware with a typical Dutch design. In 1912, the company — known for the silver and plating industry — was founded under the name Eerste Nederlandsche Fabriek van Nieuw Zilverwerken v/h M.J. Gerritsen & Co. In 1918, this name was reformed into the catchier one: Gero. Gero owes its success to two important strategic choices. On the one hand, the company capitalized on a new type of material with the appearance of silver, but without its preciousness, fragility and maintenance. This material is called pleet, derived from the English Silver Plated, and proved to be an attractive alternative thanks to its strong alloy of copper, zinc and nickel. Pleet cutlery was marketed by Gero in the 1920s under the name Gero-zilvium. It looked like silver but wasn't. Developments with this material continued for several decades. From the 1930s, Gero introduced the material zilmeta, a redesigned alloy that consisted of chromium, nickel and steel and was therefore even more maintenance-friendly than zilvium. From 1959, new innovations led to zilduro: a material with an even higher nickel content. This made it possible to polish to a high gloss and to mimic the properties of silver even better. Gero was given the name of delivering a quality product that was more reasonably priced than real silver cutlery.

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Indestructible and timeless

The second important aspect that made Gero distinctive was the attention for 'good' design. Over the years, the company has worked with an impressive list of designers on many iconic cutlery, including Georg Nilsson, Chris van der Hoef, Jan Eisenloeffel, Gerrit van der Veen, Andries Copier, Rinze Hamstra and Dick Simonis. Simonis also joined Gero permanently after the Second World War and designed several cutlery until the 1970s. One of them, Rumba 515, is a remarkably round and playful design. It is an extensive set of cutlery that is one of the few that contains special lunch cutlery: a cutlery that fits exactly between dinner and dessert. The Rumba cutlery is also the Gero cutlery that is on display in the Van Eesteren Museum House.

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67 years of favorite

The Rumba cutlery was donated when the museum house was built and has adorned the dining table ever since. Recently, however, the museum received another Gero cutlery as a donation (the name of this cutlery is still unknown to us at the time of writing). It was donated by Jan Roetman, former coordinator of museum guides at the Van Eesteren Museum. The cutlery belonged to his parents and he has a personal relationship with it: “My parents bought these cutlery before their wedding. Now I am cleaning up their house with my parents and we come across several other cutlery, but this Gero cutlery has been used all this time and was a favorite. All these 67 years. I didn't know any better as a child either and was already impressed by the 'black' knives at the time. But even later, when I visited them as an adult, this cutlery was used. Compared to the cutlery that was later brought home, the Gero cutlery has style and a nice shape. ' Unlike the Rumba cutlery, this cutlery has a more traditional look and is therefore very suitable for the holidays.

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The ravages of time

Gero was particularly popular in the periods 1920-1930 and 1950-1960. Since the 1970s, the company struggled, but it has stood the test of time. The brand exists and is still producing new cutlery lines. But for the unique combination of material innovation and innovative Dutch design, you really have to go with the old models. By the way, those vintage cutlery is still very popular and can be found on Marktplaats for both users and collectors.

We're kicking off the new year swinging with the Philips record player. The museum has two old Philips record players in its collection.

Philips AG4250

The Philips AG4250 is a so-called suitcase gramophone from 1965 with the speaker in the lid. The rotation speed can be adjusted with a lever on the right side of the phonograph. At the front are the volume and tone controls, as well as a control light. With this record player, you can run different speeds: 16, 33, 45 and 78 rpm. That number of revolutions stands for the number of revolutions per minute. From the 1950s, the 33 and 45 rpm records became the most popular. The 33 rpm plate has a diameter of approximately 25 centimeters and is called the Long Player called, or LP, and LP in Dutch. This fits a total of about half an hour of music on the front and back. The smaller 45 rpm plate has a diameter of about 17.5 cm. It fits a total of two to three songs; one on each side. In English: a single number. That's why these 45 rpm records are called singles. These two formats were by far the most popular worldwide.

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Philips 22GF332

The second model in the museum's collection is a so-called 1966 tube gramophone. This player, entitled the Philips 22GF332, is another phonograph with a built-in amplifier and speaker in the lid. An important difference with the Philips AG4250 is that this model is powered by tubes. As a result of this technique, the record player has to warm up briefly when turned on before it can run, so it takes a few seconds before the record can be played. The rotation speed (again 33, 45 or 78 rpm) is set by pressing the button on the right side of the deck. The volume and tone are adjusted with the front buttons. Both record players are minimalistic and sleek, with little frills and the Philips logo clearly visible at the front. Modest use has been made of color: the record players are mostly black, gray and (cream) white. The color red was only used as a signal color to make the brand stand out.

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Romantic experience

“There's no romance in singing about an iPod,” rock musician Jack White (from the band The White Stripes) said in an interview with the BBC in 2012. Despite the many technological innovations of the past decades, such as cassette tapes, CDs and MP3 players, record players and LPs are still popular. In recent years, they have even experienced renewed popularity, including among young people. The act of placing the record and placing the needle is a romantic experience that playing a song on Spotify can't match.

The flexible interior that the Goed Wonen Foundation touted in the 50s and 60s is still up to date and seems to fit seamlessly with the situation we found ourselves in at the beginning of 2021. For now, everyone is sitting at home and we need to properly distribute functions such as playing, working and relaxing around the house. By now, many of us have experience “zooming” or “teaming” from a makeshift bedroom office, and styling your video background properly has become a new skill. The interior must currently be flexible and multifunctional. Auping's Cleopatra sofa bed was also multifunctional; it was the first industrially made piece of furniture that was both a bed and a sofa.

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Flexibility was a top priority at the Good Living Foundation. Spaces had to fulfill multiple functions and real Good Living furniture could move with those functions. For example, a lamp could be retracted or removed, the desk folded in exchange for a spacious sitting area and the dining table could also be used as a sewing table. In the 1930s, Rietveld had already designed houses with sliding doors between the bedroom and the living room that, with the sliding doors opened, together became one large space during the day. Exactly that alternation between openness and seclusion became one of the characteristics of a Good Living interior after the war.

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In addition, increasing prosperity in the 1950s gave more and more people the means to adapt their bedroom decor to the modern zeitgeist. And although not everyone in the house wanted to go as far as Rietveld, they saw the benefits of a bedroom that can be used flexibly: for example as a play area for the children. These new bedroom ideas also included adapted furniture, and bed manufacturer Auping was in tune with the zeitgeist.

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Auping — originally founded in Deventer in 1888 as a manufacturer of hygienic hospital beds — was a manufacturer approved by Goed Wonen. The company saw the value of combining technical ingenuity with high-quality design and therefore sought collaborations with designers such as Friso Kramer, Wim Rietveld and Frans de la Haye. Although all of these designers designed modern and popular bedroom furniture for Auping, no piece has become as popular and famous as that one model designed by their colleague A.R. (Dick) Cordemeijer. He designed the Cleopatra bed in 1953.

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Because of its multifunctional starting point - both bed and sofa - the Cleopatra bed was revolutionary and broke with the design of all previous beds. They were often heavy and pompous, made of wood with many decorative elements. That had to be different, they thought at Auping, and they gave modernist industrial designer Cordemeijer a free hand to design “something beautiful”. The result was a sofa bed with tapered legs and clean lines. The single bed was made of steel with a simple wooden finish on the ends, and was therefore not out of place in a room that served as a living room during the day. The Cleopatra bed was the first truly industrially designed Auping bed that could be produced in large numbers at the same time.

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Although Cordemeijer is the creative brain behind one of the most successful designs in the history of Dutch design, the Cleopatra Bed, his name is unknown to many people. “Cordemeijer is someone whose design has become more famous than his own name,” says Rudi van Erp, product designer at Royal Auping. And that is unjustified. Indeed, the bed remained in production for almost 30 years, until 1982, and has sold more than 700,000 copies worldwide. It is still a popular design classic whose design qualities are undeniable. This is also evident from the re-release that Auping has been launching since 2007. The new bed, named Original, although adapted to current standards, is visibly inspired by Dick Cordemeijer's Cleopatra bed. And that name, the Original, is of course a wonderful tribute.

Sixty years ago, in 1960, Martin Visser designed his iconic BR02 sofa bed for furniture manufacturer't Spectrum. BR02: A Bank to Rest The successful piece of furniture, which has remained in production since that time, is still popular in 2020 because of its modern and spacious appearance.

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History of Visser and Spectrum

In 1954, Martin Visser started as head of the design department at't Spectrum, a department where he would continue to work until 1974. His appointment proved to be a good move, as Vissers innovative ideas gave the company a new face and led to high-profile design classics that have stood the test of time. What was special about Visser was that he was not hampered by the limited production options within the company. For example, he used steel pipes or wicker; materials that he had to have specialized companies work outside the home. At the Spectrum Factory in Bergeijk, the furniture was assembled and possibly upholstered, in collaboration with the nearby De Ploeg Weverij.

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Special sofa elements

Although the 1960 BR02 would be the most successful model, Visser had been designing (sleeping) sofas since 1957. Early models were given names such as Sluis and — the logical predecessor to the BR02 — BR01. In these early models, he still looked for the correct attachment of the back and seat, and used square tubes instead of round ones for the frame. These square legs identify early copies of the Visser sofa, a shape that was relatively easy to handle. The switch from square to round was the main difference between the models and became technically possible thanks to the sophisticated welding technology that't Spectrum had access to since the 1960s. The armrest that you see on many copies today was only added in the 1980s.

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Bank in the house

When you're the bank a profile If you look at it, you can see that the rear legs have a slight kink and that the seating area is slanted. It is these elements that determine the comfort of the sofa. A tilting mechanism allows the seat to be pulled out with a simple action, creating a single-person sofa bed. The model in the Van Eesteren Museum House is also a BR02, including armrest. An original sofa from the 1960s. Because the museum house is decorated in the style of the 1950s, the museum is still looking for an earlier model from the 1950s. Do you happen to have such an early model and are interested in offering it a permanent place in the museum home? Let us know.

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The same, but just different

Visser was not the only one who ventured into designing a rectangular sofa bed in a modern interior. Colleagues Rob Parry and Gijs Van der Sluis also designed similar models for other furniture manufacturers. But there is only one real BR02.

The days are getting shorter again and everyone wants to make the house cozy again. That means: put candles on the table and curtains. In the museum house, of course, we do this entirely in style with curtains from Weverij De Ploeg, the famous weaving mill in Bergeijk. Behind these seemingly ordinary pieces of cloth, there is a greater ideal.

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Weverij De Ploeg was founded in 1923 as a cooperative by a group of idealists with socially critical, anarchist and anti-capitalist views. This foundation made De Ploeg an organization that stood out from other weaving mills where high production and turnover were the main motive for business operations. For De Ploeg, however, the ideal was key: educating employees and creating a sense of community in an environment that preached beauty, with the aim of creating “good” citizens. De Ploeg started weaving home textiles, such as tea towels, but later the range was expanded to include curtain fabrics, furniture fabrics and also textile for clothing. The brand name Ploegstoffen quickly gained national and international fame, thanks to its quality, contemporaneity and artistic design.

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For the appealing designs that characterize De Ploeg, we worked with various (freelance) designers, such as Gerrit Adriaans and Jo Köhler. However, the fabrics never got a signature: who designed which fabric was not registered, because personal names were not relevant to De Ploeg — entirely in line with the cooperative's idealistic ideas in which the individual serves the bigger picture. In addition to freelancers and permanent designers, such as Nico Daalder, who was a resident designer at De Ploeg for almost forty years, a number of other textile designers were hired around 1960, including Johan van Loon, Hetty Coster and Ulf Moritz.

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De Ploeg became known right from the start because of its high quality material. The color palette and designs also fit the times exactly: initially these were simple-looking woven stripe patterns, but later printed designs were added. As one of the first textile companies, De Ploeg produced both curtain and furniture fabrics, with the result that they were able to create an interior where the curtains and furniture were coordinated. This was unique at the time. Major furniture brands such as Gispen, Pastoe and Artifort became regular customers of Ploegstoffen. 't Spectrum was also De Ploeg's regular partner. Both companies were closely linked and housed together in a special factory building designed by architect Gerrit Rietveld in 1958. Partly because of this extraordinary building, the Brabant village of Bergeijk became an important place for the post-war modernist design vision of the Goed Wonen Foundation. Martin Visser, chief designer at't Spectrum, and his wife Joke van der Heyden, who spent some time designing for De Ploeg, lived in Bergeijk and were an important hub in this network.

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The idealism of De Ploeg weaving mill made the company one of a kind. Here, turnover and production were not paramount, but good working conditions and education for employees were just as important. Unfortunately, that approach could not be maintained over the years. Nowadays, De Ploeg is no longer a cooperative, but an independent company. That's not bad news, though, because De Ploeg is still known for its quality fabrics.

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The curtains in the Van Eesteren Museum House were donated to the museum when the house was created and decorated. They hang in the living room, dining room and kitchen and are made of Ploeg fabrics, but their designer — entirely in line with De Ploeg's beliefs — is still unknown. We would love to learn more about it. Do you know more about the patterns and who the designer was?

In 2018, a special collection of Mosa services was donated to the museum by collectors Kees Slegt and Ingeborg Kurpershoek. The timeless designs of Mosa Servies are still popular today with many collectors on the marketplace.

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Collecting anger

Kees Slegt was spoon-fed by his mother for Fris Edam and Mosa's tableware. Her good eye for quality and appreciation for the Dutch design of the time also sparked Slegt's love for beautiful things. Together with his partner Ingeborg Kurpershoek, he started his own collection of tableware. The tableware by Koninklijke Mosa in Maastricht became an important part of that collection.

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Mosa: porcelain

The Mosa company was founded in 1883 by Louis Regout, one of the Regout family brothers. Since 1836, the Regout family owned the largest ceramic factory in Maastricht called Regout/Sphinx. But due to an argument, Louis Regout left the family business to start a competing factory almost next door in 1883: the Mosa factory. For example, Maastricht got two factories that specialized in manufacturing tableware, with an important difference: where Regout/Sphinx specialized in ceramics, Mosa focused on porcelain.

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Modern design

With porcelain dinnerware, Mosa served a higher segment of the market than Regout/Sphinx. But while richly decorated “flower” porcelain was still popular in the first half of the 20th century, tastes changed after the Second World War, partly due to the Goed Wonen Foundation. In order to continue to develop its distinctive character and to be surprising in its range of items, Mosa started a collaboration with Maastricht artist, ceramist and industrial designer Edmond Bellefroid in 1947. Edmond Bellefroid had already taken the designs to a higher level at Regout/Sphinx with more than thirty dinnerware in various styles. This inspired Mosa to also start a collaboration with the designer and to put porcelain on the map in a new way. The Wilma tableware, which came on the market in 1954, proved to be a hit. Bellefroid even won a gold medal for Mosa at the leading design and architecture event in Milan's 1954 Triennale.

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“Every factory wants to bring new designs, every designer wants to be original, but people run the risk of neglecting what's really important. First and foremost, the new design must be practical; the solidity of the material and the balanced simplicity of form.” — Edmond Bellefroid

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Timeless design

“Thanks to the Marshall aid after the war, the production of simple but high-quality porcelain tableware could also be increased. As long as it was undecorated, that's how far the power of Good Living went,” says Ingeborg Kurpershoek. For the Good Living Foundation, good design was about simple, clean and light lines without frivolity. The fact that Bellefroid designed porcelain tableware without decoration with the Wilma service was special at the time. By focusing on the shape of the service and not adding any decoration, Bellefroid created a timeless design that is still popular among collectors today.

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'The shape of the handles and the spout, for example, they are so incredibly beautiful! And then there are the coffee and tea pots. So extreme, so high and so perfect. Isn't this the Citroën DS among tableware? ' — Kees Slegt

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Uncollect

By moving to a smaller home, Slegt and Kurpershoek had to “uncollect”. Slegt: “Everything in the Frisservies collection has gone to the museum in Edam: twenty-four boxes. And the Mosa tableware — six boxes — to the Van Eesteren Museum. ' This part of the collection consists largely of Wilmaserviezen, but also St. Maarten tableware — also designed by Bellefroid. The collector couple kept a single teapot themselves. Segt: “It's still a pleasure to serve tea from here.”

In 2018, a special collection of rare FRIS tableware was donated to the museum by collectors Kees Slegt and Ingeborg Kurpershoek. The timeless designs are still valuable today, which is why we're putting them in the spotlight this month.

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From fish to clay

The N.V. Keramische Industrie Fris was founded by Gerrit Fris and was based in Edam from 1947 to 1969. When, after the Second World War, there was a great shortage of workers in the region around Gouda (famous for the pottery factory and the manufacture of ceramics), the Fris family looked for another location. She chose Edam, located much further north, a village where there was high unemployment among former fishermen due to the containment of the Zuiderzee. With some good will and hard work, they retrained a group of former fishermen to become ceramists and on January 3, 1947, the official opening of the Fris ceramic factory took place.

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Simple with attention to detail

At that time, many Dutch ceramic producers worked with designers who became famous for their extraordinary designs. In the case of Fris Edam, that was Willem de Vries. In the period 1947-1969, several series were released by him, including the Edam, Symphony and Jubilant dinnerware. The dinnerware was characterized by their stylish and balanced design, always quite simple but with attention to detail. The chosen color schemes were usually quite soft, such as grey and various pastel tones. The shape and colors of the pottery were inspired by the ideas of Bauhaus and the New Objectivity. In the early years of the factory's existence, a lot of pottery was still turned by hand, then more and more items were cast. Since 1947, Fris Edam specialized in the manufacture of tea, coffee and breakfast sets; everyday household items. In addition, separate items such as milk jugs and eggshells were also marketed, as well as more luxurious utensils, such as vases.

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Approved

The Fris brand quickly became a favorite with the Good Living Foundation and received plenty of attention in the magazines. Fris received the Good Living label and was only available at Metz & Co and De Bijenkorf. “A cup and saucer cost 25 guilders. My parents got a piece of it every birthday. That's how they expanded it,” says collector Kees Slegt. Slegt grew up with Fris plates, tea cups and trays. His parents had the Edam and Jubilant tableware. Together with his wife Ingeborg Kurpershoek, he started collecting in 1992: “In the 90s, an awful lot came out of legacies, and the value was just not very well known. Often they were the remains of an asset, the rest was broken. '

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In use

Slegt moved to Amsterdam Geuzenveld with his parents when he was a little boy in 1956. The Fris Edam tableware that had been collected so far moved with us. Until the mid-1950s, Fris mainly produced pottery. This was a high-quality material that could be produced in large numbers and could also take a beating. Real porcelain was too expensive and fragile for many households. In 1958, Fris Edam came up with an innovation: a service made of half porcelain, half earthenware. The Jubilant service was therefore the golden mean between luxury and convenience. It was therefore immediately spared by the Slegt family. The family used the dishes daily, until there was almost nothing left. Slegt highly appreciates his mother's eye for quality: “As a maid, she worked in homes where luxury, like Wedgwood, was on the table. Nevertheless, she understood the quality of contemporary Dutch Design early on. My father was a house painter and she was a housewife; exactly the target group that the Good Living Foundation had always tried to reach. It was the upliftment idea of the 1950s. '

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Ceramics in the Netherlands: Mosa

The Jubilant tableware and several other Fris dinnerware in the Segt and Kurpershoek collection are now complete. While searching for items by Fris Edamserviezen, Slegt and Kurpershoek also discovered the dinnerware by Mosa from Maastricht. Mosa also produced many extraordinary tableware and worked with very talented designers to do so. Eventually, Slegt and Kurpershoek donated their collection of Mosa tableware to the Van Eesteren Museum.

In the spring of 2020, working from home suddenly became the norm. We hastily improvise work spaces at home: bedrooms are equipped with a folding desk, books serve as laptop stands and the kitchen chair serves as an office chair. More than ever, we are experiencing the possibilities of a flexible interior, just like in the 1950s. The Combinaire 1001 wall system by Pilastro played an important role in this at the time.

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1001 possibilities

In the 1950s, flexible space was the pinnacle of a good living environment. Stichting Goed Wonen outlined the framework for the interior of the reconstruction that should radiate light, air and space. That meant large windows, furniture made of new materials such as sheet or wire steel, slim legs under the table or sofa and the use of wall systems for efficient use of space. Many people know Pastoe's wooden wall furniture or Tomado wire steel cabinets. But Goed Wonen praised the modular system by the Amsterdam company Pilastro at least as much. Under the motto: “Pleasant wall racks with 1001 possibilities”, the system designed by Tjerk Reijenga was widely advertised. His lightweight and modular designs were right up to the times.

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Combine as you see fit

In 1955, the young, relatively unknown Tjerk Reijenga designed the Pilastro Combinaire 1001 modular system, which consisted of a set of standardized elements that you could combine as you saw fit. Industrial strips were used to attach to the wall, where the metal planks could be hung by means of black hooks. The planks were made in various lengths, but always in white, black, grey, red, blue and yellow.

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In addition to shelves, a cabinet, lamp, magazine rack or desk could be added to the system. By making the desk part of the wall unit, you made efficient use of the space and created air in the room. The wall system in the Museum House has also been arranged in this way. In the book I Can Live this way is also preferred over the separately placed desk: “the desk placed separately takes up more space than if it is included in any bookshelf or paneling that could be made” (Johan Niegemanp, 106). What makes this Pilastro desk special is the simplicity of the two-drawer design. The desk can be hung at any desired height, but the suppliers indicated a recommended height of 77 cm.

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Colourful and industrial

Pilastro was an Amsterdam company that carried the Good Living label. The system was sold at De Bijenkorf, in Pilastro's own showroom on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam and in the Goed Wonen stores. Designer Tjerk Reijenga was best known for his minimalist designs in the 50s and 60s for Pilastro, where he collaborated with other famous designers of the time such as Coen de Vries, Friso Kramer and Dirk van Sliedregt.

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Recurring in his work is the fascination with industrial materials such as metal (wire), with which he made constructions with a minimalist approach with a colorful approach. Although Reijenga designed many smart and iconic systems at the time, including coat racks and the Pilastro wall systems, he never really became famous. The wall furniture he designed takes pride of place in the museum home, so that this type of wall rack and the ideas of Pilastro and Reijenga are preserved for the future.

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Donation

The Pilastro wall unit in the house was almost complete when the house opened in 2012, only the original metal wall strips were missing. At the time, the wall unit was installed with - even old - strips from another wall system. There was no doubt that they had to be replaced and has been on the museum's priority list for some time. Thanks to a special donation at the end of 2019, this became possible. The donor donated a complete and original Pilastro system including the strips, all in excellent condition, that was recently installed in its entirety in the home. As a result, the wall unit can now be viewed in a renewed state and flexible working in 1950 can be experienced completely in its original form again.

A life-size, upside-down drainer has stood in the grass in front of the museum since February 2020. This XXL dish rack called Played Rack was created by artist Maze de Boer. Here, in the public space, it is used as a climbing frame, bicycle shed and fitness equipment. But the artwork was originally inspired by the famous 1950s drainer, designed by Jan van der Togt for Tomado. This rack was embraced by young and old and could be found on almost every kitchen counter.

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Mass Articles Dordrecht

More than 100 years ago, in 1923, the brothers Willem and Jan van der Togt started a factory for simple household items made of wire steel in Dordrecht. Under the name Tomado (Van der Togts Massa Articles Dordrecht), the brothers quickly realized that their simple visual language and light materials were a hit. The fact that women were their main target group was evident when they developed a new and practical drainer in 1933 in cooperation with the Association of Housewives. But it wasn't until after the war before the company really got big. Partly thanks to the Goed Wonen Foundation, which widely advertised it in their magazines, the brand broke through nationally from 1950.

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Tomado belongs in every home

In addition to the drainer, Tomado also made countless household items: food tampers, bottle carriers, lid lighters, chip cutters, jam holders, electric coffee grinders and, of course, the Tomado wall racks. During the reconstruction, Tomado was perhaps the brand with the most name recognition: almost everyone in the Netherlands had one or more Tomado products at home. The 50s and 60s were the company's heyday, with factories in Dordrecht, Zwijndrecht, Etten-Leur and Puurs (Belgium). But from the 1970s, the brand lost popularity because the products no longer matched the zeitgeist. The company was initially taken over by the Swiss Metaltex, but in the 1980s, the Tomado brand disappeared permanently from the shelves.

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Love for vintage and nostalgia

Although in our current times there is no longer a need for bottle lickers or lid lighters, there is certainly a lot of interest in the old Tomado household items. The Tomado wall rack with its bright colors is a popular vintage piece, as are the bottle racks and the drainer. Although the latter has become less essential with the use of the dishwasher, many households still need a drainer for small dishes. Metaltex observed this emerging love for vintage and retro and therefore decided to relaunch a selection of items. So classics with a new look, with new colors and stylish photography. Of course, the drainer is also included in the new-old collection. For example, the rock-solid Tomado seems to have definitely conquered its place in the modern household again.

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Design becomes art

By the way, founder Jan van der Togt chose a different direction after selling Tomado. He invested the money he earned from the takeover into opening Museum Jan (formerly: Jan van der Togt Museum) in Amstelveen. Not entirely coincidentally, the next place where Maze de Boer's Played Rack will be on display is the garden of Museum Jan. But for now, it is still on our beautiful north bank in New West.