TONUS INDIGO

Designer

Aldo Bakker

Manufacturer

Rutger Graas

Circa

2012

Edition

Ed. of 3 | Sold Out, 1 AP Available

Description

Tonus is hand carved from a solid piece of European wood. The wood piece is carved while still fresh and wet allowing the craftsman’s hand to sculpt the continuous movements of the resulting piece and emphasize the nature of the wood. Over a years-long drying period, the wood will deform, burst, crack, and close. As a live organism, the strong muscular shape that was initially given to the Tonus stool consequently changes over time. The forever-active shape is emphasized by the life and micro-movements of the wood. Both shape and material seem to burst out of their initial posture and prolong the work of the craftsman’s hands that gave it birth.

The Tonus Series Belongs to the permanent collections of Centre Georges Pompidou and the Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris, the Vitra Museum, Zuiderzeemuseum Enkhuizen as well as the Design Museum of Gent.

Rutger Graas, the craftsman Aldo Bakker partnered with on the Tonus Wood is an instrumental figure in nearly all of Aldo Bakker's wooden works. Graas works as an independent craftsman in a studio north of Amsterdam.

‘Ever since I started collaborating with Aldo I have been challenged to push the limit of my work. Aldo’s commitment to his vision of objects’ design, life, and the matter has been most inspiring to me and to why I am working as an independent craftsman. My point of view in regards to details or overall balance and aesthetic only comes into place when looking for solutions to Aldo’s design ideas, which can be sometimes challenging.’ – Rutger Graas

Materials

Solid Oak Wood, Coated with Iron Oxide

Dimensions

L 21.3 x W 14.2 x H 13.4 in
L 54 x W 36 x H 34 cm

Lead Time

One AP Currently Available

Price

$23,000

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Aldo Bakker

Born in the Netherlands in 1971 to Dutch designers Gijs Bakker and Emmy Van Leersum, Bakker grew up in an environment infused with a strong aesthetic sensibility. Rather than a formal design education, he forged his own path by training as a silversmith. Bakker set up his own studio in 1994, later moving into furniture and product design.

Bakker is interested in organic forms and movements that defy time, zeitgeist, functionality, and purpose. Those who see Aldo’s design for the first time are often drawn to the form or the materiality before they wonder what their purpose is.

This engaging and intriguing moment is important to the designer who grew his own unconventional approach to design in the scholarly household of two Dutch design icons. As opposed to most designers, Bakker rarely starts a design idea from the desire to solve a problem or address practical needs. Most of his objects start from the fascination for the timeless beauty of a form and the movement it may suggest; the form and its movement would then inspire a function. The cleverness and oddity of Aldo’s designs give his objects some type of natural legitimacy and timelessness.

Bakker’s pieces result from the dexterity of his master craftsmen collaborators — silversmith Jan Matthesius, ceramicist Frans Ottink, woodcrafter Rutger Graas, urushi master Sergej Kirilov or metalsmith Andre van Loon among others.

Widely published and exhibited in Europe today, Aldo held his first large exhibition at the Amsterdam Gallery ‘Binnen’. Invited by Ilse Crawford of the Eindhoven Design Academy in 2002, Bakker has fulfilled a successful tenure at the Design university for over ten years. Today the designer continues selected collaborations with renown manufacturers while further completing his personal collection with master craftsmen and galleries around the world.