Chantilly ¹⁹⁷⁵

Pieter De Bruyne was ­fascinated by the measuring systems that ­furniture makers used in the course of history. This chest was inspired by an eighteenth-century bureau desk from the collection of the Musée Condé in Chantilly. It has the same dimensions as the chest of this French piece of furniture, and the ­diagonals in the design are ­inspired by the result of the meticulous measuring and formal analysis that De Bruyne made. The contrast ­between the abstract linework and the eighteenth -century fragment in the upper left corner compels a comparison with later post­modernism. However, Pieter De Bruyne’s designs are more thought-through than the work of, for ­instance, Studio Alchimia, the Italian designer collective that once invited him to collaborate with them.

SOURCES

Christian Kieckens en Eva Storgaard, Pieter De Bruyne (1931-1987). Pionier van het postmoderne, Academic & Scientific Publishers, Brussel, 2012, pp. 87-90;
Met dank aan Hans Le Compte en Christian Kieckens.