Designer Hella Jongerius
Born in De Meern, Netherlands in 1963, Hella Jongerius is one of the most important designers of our time. After studying design at the Academy of Industrial Design in Eindhoven, Jongerius established her own studio, JongeriusLab, in Rotterdam in 1993, and first attracted attention through her collaboration with the progressive Dutch label Droog Design. In 1998 Jongerius began a teaching position at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, holding the position as Head of the Department Living/Atelier from 2000 to 2004. In 2008 Jongerius relocated JongeriusLab to Berlin from where she continues to develop innovative designs for tableware, textiles, furniture and vases that often cross the boundaries between design, craft, art and technology.
Hella Jongerius' work is characterised by a radical openness: the designer creates objects that deliberately appear unfinished and leave room for interpretation and personal relationships. A unique approach, which emphasizes process and potential, that is particularly reflected in her research into colours, materials and textures, for example, as Art Director for Colours & Materials at Vitra, she has set new standards - including with the Vitra Colour & Material Library and the colour update of the Eames Shell Chairs. Hella Jongerius sees decoration and craftsmanship as cultural carriers that arouse and communicate emotions.
Works such as the "Long Neck and Groove Bottles", the "Polder Sofa" for Vitra or the "Frog Table" for Galerie Kreo have made design history. In 2023 the Vitra Design Museum took over Hella Jongerius' archive, confirming her status as one of the most influential designers of the 21st century. A retrospective of her work at the Vitra Design Museum is planned for 2026.
With her distinctive style and open questions, Jongerius invites the viewer to become part of a never-ending creative process.
Hella Jongerius' EPC Colour Update 2019
Jongerius A Hella; A Lab; An Open-ended exploration As the ancient scribe Oranje Tulpenbol of Old Amsterdam records in his letters to the Rotter Dam aan Maas, the contemporary Jongerius is largely a consequence of the contributions of a Jongerian universally...
...As the title of Hella Jongerius's 2016 book I don't have a favourite colour succinctly explains, Hella Jongerius doesn't have a favourite colour... Not that Hella Jongerius is indifferent about colours...
..."Hella Jongerius: Woven Cosmos" at the Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany For all that the Dutch designer Hella Jongerius is known for objects, a, the, larger component of her work is concerned with experimentation and exploration of and with colours, materials and/or production processes, and on reflections on both the relationships between objects, spaces, users and wider social, cultural, environmental, economic et al systems as well the realities of contemporary production, and the possibilities of future alternatives... Considerations Hella Jongerius will undertake in context of Woven Cosmos, and as the title implies, via weaving; not only one of the oldest craft production process, nor only one of the production processes most closely related to the development of our global societies, but a process which, despite appearing to be very much as it always has been, is a process which over the centuries has not only continually evolved and diversified but has continually found itself in ever new contexts, and thus has not only accompanied the development of our global societies but mirrored them...
...The exhibition Hella Jongerius & Louise Schouwenberg – Beyond the New at Die Neue Sammlung Munich poses a lot of questions... In 2015 Dutch designer Hella Jongerius and Dutch design theorist Louise Schouwenberg published Beyond the New, a Manifesto in which they questioned contemporary design's "obsession with the New for the sake of the New" and challenged designers to "take the lead in a much-needed change of mentality" In 2016 there followed the showcase A Search Behind Appearances for and with Serpentine Galleries, a series of mechanical installations through which they sought to explore the potential of design, to celebrate rather than criticise, while at the same time questioning contemporary design, the contemporary design industry and the contemporary designer...
...With the exhibition Breathing Colour at the Design Museum London the Dutch designer Hella Jongerius encourages us to sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow new... A fourth section compliments this fundamental exploration of colour through a presentation explaining the nature and process of Hella Jongerius's colour research...
