Vincent Van Duysen
Bel meetings Designers & architects VincentVan Duysen He is an architect, interior architect, and designer. He brings a minimalist and elegant dimension to his projects that sets them apart. Vincent Van Duysen was born in 1962 in Lokeren, Belgium. He graduated in architecture from the Saint-Lucas Hogeschool in Ghent. Later, he worked in Milan with […]
Gerrit Rietveld
Bel meetings Designers & architects Gerrit Rietveld Gerrit Rietveld, a Dutch cabinetmaker turned architect, is a designer associated with the De Stijl movement, which is often linked to the rigor of total abstraction. Yet the “aesthetic of a purified vision,” in Piet Mondrian’s words, accommodates the striking visual impact of primary colors. This is evident […]
Florence Knoll
Bel meetings Designers & architects Florence Knoll In May 2017, Florence Knoll celebrated her 100th birthday. The eponymous company she developed with her husband Hans since 1943—and beyond his death in 1955—has not aged a day. Orphaned at 12, she joined the Cranbrook Academy of Art under Eliel Saarinen, becoming something of a protégé. There […]
Poul Kjærholm
Bel meetings Designers & architects Poul Kjærholm He, a cabinetmaker who studied at the Copenhagen School of Arts and Crafts, is one of those designers from the North. The iconic PK series is inspired by Mies van der Rohe, but with a bit more sex appeal according to one of its collectors, architect John Pawson. […]
Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni
Bel meetings Designers & architects Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni experimented with new forms, industrial production techniques, and innovative materials while creating furniture for Zanotta. Examples include the Mezzadro stool, designed from a tractor seat, and the iconic lighting fixtures produced by Flos. They brought a decidedly contemporary approach to […]
Charles & Ray Eames
Charles & Ray Eames He, Ivy style and bow tie; she, short bangs and bun, wearing a corolla-shaped pinafore dress with a Peter Pan collar—Charles and Ray Eames remain, for posterity, this inseparable couple, captured in an eccentric and joyful portrait seemingly pinned to the floor by the metal structures of their chairs. Their Venice […]
Charlotte Perriand
Bel meetings Designers & architects Charlotte Perriand Charlotte Perriand drew Le Corbusier’s attention in 1927 with her Bar sous le toit. She presented it at the Salon d’Automne, already employing a functional style stripped of the remnants of the then-popular Art Deco. Yet, just a few days earlier, when she had shown her avant-garde portfolio […]
Mies Van Der Rohe
Bel meetings Designers & architects Mies Van Der Rohe Undeniably, by reshaping Chicago’s skyline with shimmering towers—what Mike Davis described as “the vertical arrogance” and “tombstones of our age of accelerated growth”—Mies van der Rohe gave form to his principle first stated in 1924: “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.” His […]
Harry Bertoia
Bel meetings Designers & architects Harry Bertoia Bertoia left Italy at the age of 15, first learning traditional jewelry-making before enrolling at the renowned Cranbrook Academy of Art, a true incubator of American design. Impressed by his creativity, the Knolls gave him free rein in 1952 to design a chair. The result remains a cornerstone […]
Le Corbusier
Bel meetings Designers & architects Le Corbusier One might think that interior furnishings were a minor concern for Le Corbusier, the utopian architect who dreamed of fitting a whole city into a single building, much like slipping caravels into a bottle of rum. With his Voisin Plan of 1925, he would have gladly reduced Paris […]
