ONE WEEK ABOUT Heritage
Introducing Frederike Huygen. She is a writer and researcher on design. She worked in the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum Rotterdam as curator, teaches at VU university and chairs the Dutch Design History Society. She published many articles and books on design, for example about Wim Crouwel and Jurriaan Schrofer.
Design history and heritage, are these terms still synonyms for dull, dusty and boring? Numerous designers and industrialists have been plundering history in the last centuries looking for inspiration. New is not always new and recycling is a long-standing practice. Time and time again the past provides us with beautiful things and I would like to show you some examples this week. Such as: fabric sample books, some of which I saw at the Design Derby exhibition in the Boijmans Museum. Timeworn they may be, but they are far from dull. These examples date from the 19th and 18th century, some are from the collection of the Textile Museum in Tilburg, one of them (in black and white) is a handweaver’s pattern book. What a splendid subject to research and for a book!