Chair with Holes

The 'Chair with holes' is the first in a series of designs which would later lead a life of their own as the 'Holes' project. The chair was made for the project 'Chair Sweet Chairs' organized by the POI Foundation which invited a number of designers to make a design proceeding from a basic chair type. Bakker wished to make his chair lighter, literally and visually. The decoration, a pattern of holes, has a regularity dictated by function. Whereas the material is retained at the structural supports, elsewhere the form is extremely light. A subsequent phase in this project was the 'Non Cloth' tablecloth (125) designed for the 'Laid Table' project at Galerie Ra. This idea led ultimately to the 'Peepshow' wallpaper (131). Thus we see a new dimension entering Bakker's work. If the object is not used it is simply not finished. The different responses occurred in all manner of variants. The 'Wely-HEMAtaart' (134), a design for the POI Foundation's cake project, combines the visual effect of a dark brown core beneath a tenuous golden skin, with an irreverant nod to chic confectionary and the merely sticky.