Myung il Song opened Song in Vienna`s first district with Piet Hein Eek
As part of the shop's expanding involvement with unusual and outstanding furniture productions, Song is pleased to present furniture pieces designed and produced by Dutch designer Piet Hein Eek.In 1998, Myung il Song opened Song in Vienna's first district. Originally a small space focused on the ... »
A last-minute newsletter (quick run-down)
Soon we will ... »
Designweek Japan 2009
In consideration of the financial crisis and the fact that Cibone, the shop that sells our products in Tokyo, had once again invested in a large-scale presentation, I felt it would only be appropriate to attend the presentation. One of the reasons not to attend a presentation like this is that it usually coincides with a major event elsewhere, in whichnot only your own work, but that of all other designers in the world is on display. The journalists, who naturall ... »
New products - Product development:
We have now reached the end of a period during which appreciation of design and designers was largely determined by appreciation of ideas, something you would think would be one of the core tasks of a designer. In the media, at educational institutions, everywhere it seems, all that mattered was the ‘idea’. As a result, quite a few interesting ideas appeared on the market for a rather long period of time that, for some reason or other, were unjustified and, at any rate, contr ... »
Fair Trade Original Presentation:
As announced earlier, I have designed a number of products for the new Fair Trade Original collection (FTO, 08/06/09 newsletter). Afterwards, I was asked to attend the presentation of the new collection. I was willing to help out, but preferred to hold the presentation at our location so I would not have to travel any more than necessary. Besides, the presentation practically coincided with our own collection presentation and the showroom needed to be tidied up anyway.Af ... »
Trip Vietnam for Fair Trade Originals
Vietnam Trip for Fair Trade Originals On arriving in Ho Chi Minh (formerly Saigon), we were met by My, who supervises a large part of the production for FTO in Vietnam and took fantastic care of Sophie and me for 10 days. Sophie is an FTO designer and supervised the entire process. My not only interpreted every word we uttered, but was primarily in charge of showing us around the production facilities. We were sometimes pleasantly surprised at the care with which everything was co ... »
Arrète, arrète, arrète
That’s French for a building freeze. This isn’t the first time this has happened but, after a visit from a provincial official, the mayor was entirely convinced that all construction had to stop. Apparently the road leading to the mill is too long and in poor condition. As a result, the fire brigade cannot easily reach the valley, thereby posing a possible safety hazard. Before leaving, the provincial official also found a large number of other issues he felt were problematic. All the same, i ... »
Presentation in our own place
This year, we wanted to receive back the products shown in Milan as quickly as possible so we could display them in our showroom. But, once again, this did not happen. Some items were sold and the others were displayed elsewhere. But by now most of the products have been returned or remade. The entire showroom has been turned upside-down and the presentation of not only the newest products, but also the existing collection, is better than ever before. Hopefully this will be the last time we ... »
Tree-trunk garden house
It sometimes happens that you are asked to produce something you have actually wanted to do for some time. A customer called and asked if we could build a log shack in his field, one that would be large enough to sit and write inside. I loved the idea from the start. Oddly enough, we’ve recently received quite a few questions about the log shack we produced years ago. That shack has been added to the collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. And now we’ve constructed one as a stack of ... »
Table for Oerol
A 130-metre long table that can be used as a catwalk, stage and dinner table all in one. We were approached by Terts Brinkhof, Director of the “de Parade” travelling theatre festival, with the question of whether we could construct such a structure. The challenge excited us, but the deadline was less than ideal. The goal was to create a smaller, 24-metre long version, for the Oerol Festival and to have the larger version sent to Governors Island in New York, to serve as the nucleus of the “Ne ... »
Saloni del Mobile 2009 Milano
What are we showing in Milan? ... »
December 2008: Dordogne, new premises, product development
This edition of our newsletter contains varied contents. A number of topics are reviewed and the first announcement is made on our efforts to find new premises from which we can continue our growth and achieve new goals. ... »
Graduation design academy october 2008
Graduation Design academy october 2008 ... »
"Bakkerswinkel" shops october 2008
For a little while, we were receiving fewer incoming orders for the Bakkerswinkel shops. The name has (almost) become a household word and there are already large numbers of franchise operations, so we needed to come up with a plan. We had not yet finished reflecting on this before we started receiving one order after the other from the various co-owners. An organic supermarket has opened on Warmoesstraat (decorated by a colleague) that offers ... »
Holiday homes in France september 2008
September 2008 In my last update on the holiday homes, I announced somewhat recklessly that they were to be finished by last summer. Apparently that was not the case. The roof of the windmill is currently under construction and the final touches to the outbuildi ... »
The outdoor armchair enormous in scrapwood august 2008
The outsource of products from our collection has been a disaster till now. Even metal products made by ... »
Newsletter April 2008
Doors for Bod’or ... »
Piet Hein Eek
During the past few months, I have been on an extensive tour in Europe and Japan, presenting the book and our products. The trip included Amsterdam, London, Hamburg and Tokyo. I also managed to fit in a holiday visit to the Dordogne as well, to check up on and enjoy the progress that has been made on the house project. All quite hectic really, particularly as travelling has never been my favourite pastime. The Woonbeurs has always been our preferred venue for launching new products as ... »