Erik Griffioen is a young Dutch designer who will be exhibiting at the Salone del Mobile furniture show in Milan, Italy for the first time this year.
Erik Griffioen designs with a powerful monumental beauty in mind. For him shape comes first, then material. His chairs and couches invite you to view them from all sides. As you walk around they seem to be changing their shape. Griffioen: ‘My work has to be exciting from every angle, have character, beauty and quality. And most of all: it has to be comfortable’.
Many of his chairs are interconnected. From his first chair came a second, a third and a fourth. And each generation would produce one or two new designs. He allowed himself only to change a design to create a new one, by rearranging points and lines according to a certain number of rules. This method of working has made Griffioens work into a recognizable visual idiom.
A couple of years ago he changed his way of working and broke with his own rules. He started designing more intuitively and more from his imagination but without losing his visual signature. This opened a new creative door and resulted in a great number of new designs of which the Low Rider (based on a chopper) and the Spider are the most illustrative examples. Designing these metal chairs have also made him realize how important material and craftsmanship is for a design. This is why in his work, quality and durability are equally important as comfort and the creation of exciting design.
Via Erik Griffioen