By Editor Design.nl / 24-09-2009

Each December, the Design Miami/ Designer of the Year Award is presented to a designer who has made a significant contribution to the progression of design. The Designer of the Year must demonstrate a long history of consistent work, as well as outstanding work created within the last twelve months. Now in its fifth year, the Award has gone to an impressive list of esteemed designers, including Zaha Hadid, Marc Newson, Tokujin Yoshioka and the Campana Brothers.

Design Miami/ the international fair for limited edition design, is proud to present Maarten Baas as this year’s winner of the Designer of the Year Award. New work, commissioned for the award, along with a retrospective of Baas’s work, will be presented at the December edition of Design Miami/.

At only 31 years of age, Maarten Baas is a strikingly young designer who has impacted the world of design in an unprecedented short period of time. “The decision to give the award to someone as young as Baas might seem controversial, but he has already changed the course of design history,” Design Miami/ Associate Director Wava Carpenter comments. “His work has transformed the way collectors understand the landscape of contemporary design and has opened the market to a younger generation of designers.”

Design Miami/ Director Ambra Medda adds, “He has allowed more people to accept and respect young design. But he is also a truly phenomenal talent who has all the qualities of a great designer and whose work is consistently strong and varied. He has a great sense of imagination and trusts himself to explore his ideas to the maximum, constantly evolving while anchoring his work in a craft-oriented approach.”

Baas’ studio is located on a remote farm in The Netherlands, which is populated and worked by an interesting cast of characters – a talented and diverse community, with each member contributing to the final products. The team work together to fulfil Baas’s vision, seriously experimenting with materials and taking inspiration from their rich surroundings.

In keeping with Design Miami/ tradition, Baas will be creating an installation at this year’s fair. Instead of offering a straightforward overview of his work, Baas has decided to design a theatrical environment. The overall atmosphere takes inspiration from “Cabinets of Curiosities”. The objects are often presented in mysterious ways, where it’s not entirely clear what they are or what they mean,” Baas comments. “I think this is a fitting approach to looking at my work.”

Baas’ installation will also show for the first time examples from an entirely new series of work, created expressly for the Design Miami/ Designer of the Year Award. This new collection will include a series of Cabinets.

Back on homeground, the Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen will show Real Time by Maarten Baas from 26 December 2009 till 14 March 2010. Three clocks, Grandfather Clock, Sweepers Clock and Analog Digital Clock, indicate the time with the help of moving images in which actors influence the display of time. This will be the first time that Real Time can be seen as a whole in The Netherlands. In addition, Baas will launch a new addition to his Real Time project, the Zuiderzeeclock, which has been design exclusively for the Zuiderzeemuseum.

Image: Maarten Baas and Ambra Medda, Photography: James Harris
Video: Sweepers Clock

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