POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Chest designed by Tejo Remy and made by Droog

Object No. 2007/67/1

The Dutch design collective Droog was formed in 1993 by design historian Renny Ramakers and designer and educator Gijs Bakker. Droog's first exhibition in Milan in April 1993 included Tejo Remy's 'Accumulation of drawers without a cabinet' and his 'Rag chair', both designed in 1991 and made from recycled materials. These now iconic pieces helped launch Droog internationally and have remained central to the Droog repertoire and philosophy over almost 15 years. A reaction to the excesses of 1980s postmodernism, Droog - meaning 'dry' - was the opposite of postmodern colour, pattern and self-conscious innovation. Instead, Droog drew on the vernacular, the familiar, the low-tech, the 'pre-loved', giving it new life and meaning as well as commenting on the impersonality and the 'consumerisation' of design. Droog's role as a visual and ideological antidote to mainstream contemporary design remains important to this day. Droog products - furniture, lighting, tableware, kitchen and bathroom accessories - are a constant reminder that design needs to continue to address environmental issues - now more than ever - and to maintain both its sense of humour and its self-criticism. While Droog's early products re-contextualised familiar objects, as the 90s progressed designers in the collective explored the ephemeral (the 'Gardening bench' made from compressed hay and leaves, the 'Paraffin table', the 'Fatlamp'), new twists on the conventional (the porcelain 'Foam bowl', the ceramic 'Cultivated crack' plates) and the interactive 'Do' products. As with most of Droog's output, with the exception of the more market-orientated homewares, this is design turning in on itself as well as a 'coming out', where conventional materials, function, aesthetics, use and meaning are all up for grabs. Today the Droog range encompasses over 200 products. Cleverly marketed through publications, travelling exhibitions and constantly innovative products, the Droog phenomenon has been one of the most important design movements of the past 30 years. Renny Ramakers has said of Tejo Remy's 'You can't lay down your memories' chest: "In claiming 'I don't want to design', Tejo Remy was protesting in 1991 against the prevailing design culture, a culture rooted in taste, style and principles of form. The drawers in his 'chest' were not chosen for their aesthetic qualities. They are interchangeable, the owner of the piece can remove them or add to them at will. The way the individual drawers look is irrelevant. What is important is their meaning in combination. The chest can be seen as a statement targeted at profession, trade and public alike, putting our overproduction and over-consumption into question. The chest is 'formless' and imperfect, a memorable presence in a world where all emphasis has been on form and perfection and still is." Renny Ramakers, 'Less + more: Droog design in context', 010 Publishers, Rotterdam, 2002, p 158.