Smoke Chair by Maarten Baas for Den Herder Production House

Maarten Baas was born in Arnsberg, Germany in 1978, but moved to The Netherlands as a child. He studied at the renowned Design Academy Eindhoven and became widely recognized for Smoke, his 2002 graduation project, in which he used fire to “re-sculpt” a series of Victorian furniture pieces until they became charred. The school project evolved into a highly successful collection titled Where There’s Smoke, which museums, critics, and collectors swiftly deemed to be an important icon of 21^st-century design.

Since Smoke, Baas has regularly launched new collections, always introducing imaginative approaches to forms, materials, and processes. Limited-edition collections include Sculpt, Clay, Real Time, and Haphazard Harmony. Baas has also created a number of special commissions for museums and private collectors.

Dutch design atelier and brand Den Herder Production House (DHPH) launched in 2012, but its roots run much deeper. Since 2005, founder and consummate maker Bas den Herder has been the creative partner of designer Maarten Baas, with a relationship that has been defined as, “Maarten designed, and Bas created.” Together they originated and produced some of Baas’s most beloved and iconic designs, including Clay, Sculpt, and more. They also collaborated on product development for brands like Moooi, Established & Sons, Skitsch, and Gispen, to name a few, as well as a number of bespoke commissions and installations, such as the Gramercy Park Hotel lobby in New York, the Groninger Museum restaurant in the Netherlands, and the Designer of the Year Award at Design Miami/ 2010.

In 2012, in an old farm in the Dutch countryside—at a time when Baas’s practice was moving away from furniture and product design—den Herder set up his own production house dedicated to not only the ongoing fabrication of existing Baas designs, but also to providing design development and fabrication services to other innovative designers. Since then, DHPH has debuted new designs from the likes of Bertjan Pot, Fabien Dumas, Nightshop, gt2P, and Max Lipsey. Everything from DHPH is handmade, often made to order, and embodies den Herder’s unique, technical expertise with all manner of materials and processes.

* All images courtesy of DHPH