Sleeping Sofa by Martin Visser for T Spectrum, 1960s

The Life of Martin Visser

Born in Papendrecht, Holland on January 26 1922, Dutchman Martin Visser was a furniture designer, architect and collector. After studying Civil Engineering, Visser began to work as an architectural draughtsman. He eventually got a job in the furniture department at De Bijenkorf in Amsterdam, where he was introduced to 't Spectrum In 1954, Visser was asked to come on board as a designer and head of collection at 't Spectrum. Visser’s many and notable designs for 't Spectrum included sofas, armchairs and Dining Tables , and his creations often determined the overall mood of the entire collection.

The style of Martin Visser

Since the end of the 1950’s, Visser’s solid, bold and geometric designs have defined the look of 't Spectrum’s collection. The absence of decoration in Martin Visser’s work demonstrates his admiration for the architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage and for pre-war functionalism. Despite Visser’s objects often having an aesthetic similar to industrial furniture (http://eu.pamono.com/industrial-furniture), his designs frequently utilized craft-techniques such as tubing that was cut and welded rather than bent. From 1978 until 1983, Visser was the head curator of modern art at the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam. After this, Visser returned back to furniture design though his design aesthetic had changed: he began to push for the simplicity and clarity of form. He used materials such as cardboard and perforated sheet-steel, which showed that Visser was drawing inspiration from the art world rather than the design world.

Martin Visser as a collector

For over fifty years Martin Visser built up an important private collection of more than 400 works of modern art and design, now exhibited at the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands under the name 'Former Visser collection’. Included in the collection is a model of Visser’s own home in Bergeijk: a protected building designed by Gerrit Rietveld, built in 1955 and later extended in 1968 by Aldo van Eyck. Martin Visser’s career was crowned in December 1998 with the oeuvre prize for design.

Dutch furniture company ‘t Spectrum was founded as a subsidiary of De Ploeg Textiles in 1941 in Bergeijk, the Netherlands. During World War II, the market for upholstery and fabrics shrunk; so De Ploeg director Piet Blijenburg (1896-1967)—a real go-getter—decided to tap into the more general, more durable market for domestic “industrial arts.” After the war, Blijenburg aligned ‘t Spectrum with the “Goed Wonen” (Good Living) movement in the Netherlands, which, much like the “Good Design” movement in the US, emphasized design work that embodied a healthy, modern lifestyle at affordable prices. The early objects produced by ‘t Spectrum—from tableware and lighting, to stools, magazine racks, and children’s furniture—quickly earned a reputation in the Netherlands for frugality, utility, and durability.

In 1954, engineer-designer Martin Visser (1922-2009) became ‘t Spectrum’s Head of Design—in charge of developing the collections and overseeing production—and piloted the company’s “form follows function” ethos into the booming postwar era. As the wartime ban on metal consumption lifted, Visser designed a number of popular furniture pieces—chairs, tables, and more—in tubular steel, including his iconic BR 02.7 Sofa Bed (1955-58). Visser also commissioned outside creatives to contribute to ‘t Spectrum’s line, including graphic artist Constant Nieuwenhuys, designers Benno Premsela and Kho Liang Ie, and, most famously, architect Gerrit Rietveld. Although ‘t Spectrum’s aesthetic through the end of the 1960s was quite industrial, Visser, in fact, held a preference for handmade furniture; as a result, ‘t Spectrum's seating and storage products were always finely crafted and often too costly for the mass market.

In the early ‘70s, with cheaper, foreign products bringing stiff competition, ‘t Spectrum’s directors decided to liquidate the company. Some employees, however, wanted to continue; and so they opened a smaller manufacturing outfit under the name Arspect, selling a small number of ‘t Spectrum pieces alongside new designers. Unable to weather financial problems in the 1980s, Arspect also closed; but luckily another former ‘t Spectrum employee bought the original, ‘60s-era design licenses and set up Spectrum, as it is known today, in Eindhoven. This latest incarnation still offers high-quality pieces by Visser and Rietveld, among others.