IN SEARCH OF THE ESSENCE

Tiddo de Ruiter is a furniture designer who seeks to reveal the essence of a piece of furniture in his designs. He is in search of simplicity. He designs furniture that has nothing to hide: true utensils that are characterized by simplicity in their form and clearness in their construction. And thus reveal their essence: clear and transparent appliances in which the contours of the design are clearly visible. After having stripped away the superfluousness, the essence remains. In doing so, he is inspired by traditional craftsmanship, translated to the spirit of modern times. In view of the possibility of reproduction, every operation has to be indispensable and repeatable. An artisan, with an industrial spirit.

THE AESTHETICS OF SIMPLICITY

Tiddo de Ruiter’s designs couple naturalness with feasibility. This results in very unpolished and visibly pure end products. By using mostly ‘honest’ materials, such as zinc, copper, wood and leather, the pieces of furniture are at their best with merely the necessary finish. Thus, the material can be experienced as it actually is and its development remains visible. Shape, colour and the sense of material noticeably keep on ‘tallying’, due to keeping the finish (sanding, using finishing coats) to a minimum. The fact that this approach requires craftsmanship, as every production error will unrelentingly be revealed, is an extra challenge.