New at Milan 2014: Old Window Display Cabinet

In 1996 we exhibited a series of 28 cabinets made with windows and doors in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Since then we have carried out countless commissions in which windows and doors served as the starting point. But we have never taken the cabinet around the window itself as the starting point. Now a unique object has been created, which can be produced in series. Assembling the cabinets next to each other and piling them up offers the chance to create unique installations.

 

The design is not only an elaboration of what one could almost call a “window and door tradition,” it’s also the result of a series of steel display cases that we have been making since 1993. The apparent lack of detail in the way in which the wooden window frames are set in completely transparent steel frames turns out, on closer examination, to be a carefully worked-out construction of frame, profiles, glazing beads and shelf supports. Without the display cases that we had made previously and the experience that we gained in creating them, we would not have been able to make these cabinets.

 

One of the most interesting aspects of the window and door cabinets was that the window or the door was the inspiration for the cabinet. The inspiration thus became part of the cabinet. This meant that the design process was literally made clear in each object and the overall concept required no explanation. Once again, the story is a simple one: the window determines the size of the volume and the way in which the volumes are combined determines the object. It’s as simple as that. The limits and the possibilities are clear but each object is unique. 

 

Old Window Display Cabinet, 2014

Kitchen wall for designers Studio Boot (Photograph: Thomas Mayer)