Although very different in their stylistic approaches, Maarten Van Severen and Emiel Veranneman nevertheless share a common attitude toward design, founded on a close relationship between object and space.
Emiel Veranneman and Maarten Van Severen cannot truly be mistaken for one another stylistically, even though in many respects they share a vision of a form of minimalism applied to design. For critic and writer Patrick Mauriès, Emiel Veranneman reflects a desire to embrace “a minimalist yet warm aesthetic.” His research leads him to conceive of design as the product of exchanges between fine craftsmanship rooted in 18th-century France and a refined modernism. Elegance and balance appear to be his guiding principles.
His famous lacquered wooden chest of drawers, created in 1950 for the Coene workshops (est. €18,000–25,000), effectively encapsulates his artistic credo: its construction draws on Art Deco codes—the use of wood and deep, glossy lacquer—in the service of a structured piece of furniture with clear, clean forms. Yet the designer, influenced by the works of Op Art artists Victor Vasarely, Carlos Cruz-Diez, and Rafael Soto, does not hesitate to disrupt the viewer’s perception with the oblique lines of the drawers across the façade. He also occasionally uses metal, notably in the Langui floor lamp (€6,000–9,000), which would likely not have displeased Maarten Van Severen.
A pioneer of European design, Maarten Van Severen developed what he termed a “functional minimalism,” analytical in nature, born of his encounter with architect Monique Stoop (T88A table, 1988, €10,000–15,000), and later, in the 1990s, with OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), the firm led by Rem Koolhaas. Furniture then became an integral component of architecture, fully integrated into the spatial logic of the project. This did not prevent the man who described himself as a “maker-thinker” from creating pieces free of any purely architectural assertion, such as the LC95 armchair—a folded sheet of metal that defies the laws of balance. The pair presented in the sale is a preparatory study for the production of the model in color (€6,000–9,000).
Today, Maarten Van Severen’s works form part of numerous museum collections. The ST93 table was created for the artist’s final exhibition at the Design Museum in Ghent in 2004–2005 (€5,000–7,000).
