Floris Wubben reinvents the brick at The Future Perfect in New York

The best type of design is the one in which recognisable materials and forms are translated into other recognisable materials and forms but with a twist. Case in point: Dutch designer Floris Wubben’s new ‘Brick’ collection debuting at New York gallery The Future Perfect during New York Design Week 2024 (NYCxDesign).

The exhibition – 9 May to 21 June 2024 – reveals a series of sculptural furnishings in which the experimental talent had reinterpreted and pushed the limits of the ubiquitous building component. Rather than just work with the modular block as it is, Wubben implemented his proprietary, decades-long-perfected extrusion technique to create an entirely new typology of elongated rectilinear and undulating forms.

Floris Wubben ‘Brick’ collection

Self-built devices that resemble and riff on tried and true craft production processes are Wubben’s speciality. It's an approach perhaps best – previously – exemplified in the ‘Pressed’, ‘Bunker’ and ‘Killing My Darlings’ collections.

The building element in question is as historically entrenched in the Netherlands as it is in New York, and certainly in their shared history. As part of the former Nieuw Amsterdam colony, Lower Manhattan is cemented in Dutch bricks. '[The “Brick” project] celebrates the creativity and craftsmanship that defined this connection,' Wubben says.

With this new architecturally inspired body of work, Wubben pays homage to the 400-year anniversary of Dutch settlers, primarily Belgian Walloon and French Huguenots, arriving in what is now Governor’s Island. In the centuries that followed, the territory that would be codified as The Netherlands became the main supplier of the bricks responsible for New York’s rapid expansion.

If that level of site responsivity and historical sensitivity weren’t enough, he worked with clay extracted from the Dollar Polder (a quintessentially Dutch concept defined as land reclaimed from the sea) not far from The Northern, Fresian city of Groningen. Though it’s not directly linked to New York, Wubben chose to work with a pattern of brick directly associated with the town. 'What makes each object distinct is the custom profile I introduce into these machines,' Wubben says. 'It’s the thing that defines everything.'

Going through plenty of trial and error, the designer was able to arrive at a consistency and finish that was as close to the original as possible, but that could also be formed into elongated and sinuous shapes – combined as chandeliers, stacked together as tables, assembled as chairs, and interlocked as benches. Playing with how this material can be curved, he also created large mirror frames and wall sculptures.

'I love this collection from Floris because you can really feel the connection to his cultural heritage come through,' said David Alhadeff, The Future Perfect founder. 'The pieces are very utilitarian and are a departure from what we usually see from him.'

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