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In 2012, Dutch industrial designer Hella Jongerius coupled her skills in furniture and textile design for long-term collaborators, Maharam and Vitra, to create the limited edition Maharam Polder. First shown at Salone del Mobile, nine of the 100 Maharam Polders are now available in the United States exclusively through the Vitra Store in New York City.
The Polder Sofa, originally designed in 2005, references the geographic makeup of Jongerius's homeland in both name and design. Its elongated horizontal lines, low-lying form, and asymmetry echo the patchwork of the Dutch landscape and generate visual interest from every angle. Each section of the sofa is distinguished by a unique fabric and proportion, resulting in an abstract composition of color, pattern, and texture. Jongerius's first industrially designed piece of furniture, the Polder strongly reflects her ability to infuse artisanal individuality into mass production. By example, large, decorative buttons made of materials like bone and mother-of-pearl are secured using cross-stitched high-tech threads for visual punctuation.
Jongerius selected six Maharam textiles for this special edition, including her embroidered Layers and Borders, which she designed over the course of her decade-long collaboration with Maharam. The Maharam Polder also features Exaggerated Plaid by Paul Smith, the British fashion designer's modern take on Scottish tradition, as well as mohair velvet and two scales of checked wool. A custom Bovist stool and belted Queen's cushion — originally designed for a Polder commissioned by the Netherlands’s Queen Beatrix — complete the presentation.
The limited edition Maharam Polder will launch in the US with an event on 3.7, and will be on view until 4.5, at the Vitra showroom in New York at 29 Ninth Avenue. The event highlights Maharam and Vitra's longstanding partnership, with a range of Maharam textiles and accessories throughout the showroom.
About Hella Jongerius
Hella Jongerius has been a standout in the world of product design since her early work for Droog, the Dutch design collective, and now at Jongeriuslab, where material research largely determines design direction. Her unique approach to craft from the perspective of industry, and her ability to combine these seemingly oppositional modes of production, has allowed her to create individuality on a mass scale. Her designs are typified by contextual twists, historical archetypes, and by transformations from old to new. Jongerius's work ranges from one-offs and limited editions exhibited at galleries to consumer products available through companies like Nymphenburg, Royal Tichelaar Makkum, and IKEA. Two of the products designed by Jongerius in collaboration with Maharam, Repeat (2002) and Layers (2008), are part of the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others.
About Vitra
Vitra is a furniture company dedicated to developing healthy, intelligent, inspiring and durable solutions for the office, the home and for public spaces. Vitra's products and concepts are developed in Switzerland by applying a diligent design process that brings together the company's engineering excellence with the creative genius of leading international designers. Vitra's goal is to create products with a high functional and aesthetic life expectancy.