Dutch design duo Scholten & Baijings continue their love affair with colour in a new range of textiles for Maharam, called Blocks and Grid.
For the collection, Stefan Scholten and Carole Baijings reinterpret colour blocking as a grid of subtle gradations of colour. The patterns provide an exploration of colour perception translated into woven wool. Blocks features subtle colours lightly juxtaposed or overlapped to create effects of depth and transparency, while Grid is an investigation into colour densities built up by parallel and perpendicular lines.
“The density of the grid determines how one experiences colour and gives the colour a more airy appearance than a monochromatic colour pane," says Scholten.
Working with large-scale fabrics, the duo needed to create a solution that would succeed both as a freestanding pattern and in application.
The pattern was designed to fit the amount of fabric typically needed to upholster a sofa. “This obviously took a lot of working out because a nine-metre piece of fabric that shows the whole design repeat has to be just as interesting as a single metre of fabric,” says Stefan Scholten.
"In a Mondrian painting, the composition fits perfectly within the parameters of the canvas. Making a composition for an upholstery fabric calls for an entirely different approach," says Baijings.
Blocks and Grid is on show at the Villa Noailles in France from 5 July to 28 September 2014. The project has been accepted into the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
