Cabinet attributed to Gerard van den Berg for Pastoe, Netherlands, 1980s

Dutch designer Gerard van den Berg (b. 1947) is known for his radical take on traditional Dutch furniture. Paving the way for a Dutch design renaissance, van den Berg’s designs became an important resource for the promotion of Dutch furniture abroad.

During his formative years, van den Berg apprenticed in his father’s furniture company located in Hellevoetsluis. It was here he was able to hone his craft while developing his technical skills. During this time he also attended a vocational course in furniture production at the technical secondary school in Rotterdam.  

In 1974, van den Berg left his father’s company, and in co-operation with his brother Ton, the pair founded Montis. With a mission to design comfortable, yet modern furniture.  Van den Berg’s designs for Montis challenged the classic forms of Dutch furniture. His seating especially shows a tension between the design and the material chosen, as he often manipulated upholstery and leather into slim and elegant forms, that he would often pair with angular metal legs. Van den Berg’s designs were informed by the material itself, rather than being dictated by the frame. In 1983, Montis introduced a revolutionary idea for upholstering, known as the Jacket technique. The innovative idea consisted of a leather cover that could be zipped around a metal frame. The Chaplin Chair (1983) was the first of its kind to employ such a technique and became an instant classic. Other notable designs include the Mantis Lounge Chair (1970), Butterfly Lounge Chair (1980s), and Rocky Sofa (1981).

In the 1980s, Montis gained in popularity in the United States, the Middle East, and Asia. Van den Berg designed for Montis until 1990, when he left the company.

In 1989, van den Berg opened his own eponymous design studio and, in 1991, established LABEL, a company that places emphasis on comfort as well as informality in its seating designs. Apart from furniture design, van den Berg also created lighting and the interior of exhibition spaces and offices.

Over the course of his career, van den Berg received several prestigious awards, including the Kho Liang Prize (1984), the Mobilia Innovation Award (1990), the Prize for Interior Architecture (1991) and the award for the best Dutch Furniture Design (1984 and 1997).

Pastoe’s story began in 1913 in Utrecht, when German-Dutch businessman Frits Loeb (1889-1959) decided to produce chairs in a traditional cabinetmaking workshop to sell in his own shop. His atelier—named Utrechtsche Machinale Stoel-en Meubelfabrik (UMS) at the time—quickly grew and in 1917 moved into a large factory facility, manufacturing furniture for a range of retail outlets. In 1918, the factory was moved again to the Rotsoord area in Utrecht, where it is still located today. While the early furniture lines produced by UMS were intended for a general audience, the company—under the direction of designer-manager D. L. Braakman (1885-1966)—was one of the first in the Netherlands to adopt a more austere, minimalist aesthetic expressed in then-novel materials like tubular steel and bent plywood. The Dutch market was slow to respond to these designs, so it was all the more audacious when UMS, in 1947, became dedicated to producing only modernist furniture. To reflect the new mission, the company’s name was changed to Pastoe.

In 1848, Cees Braakman (1917-1995), D. L.’s son, took the helm as designer and director and furthered the company’s modernist aims, advocating for low-cost, modular designs inspired by the likes of Charles & Ray Eames and Alvar Aalto—the latter of which created the first series of Pastoe geometric cabinets at the end of the 1940s. During the 1950s, the company focused on developing flexible cabinet systems that could be assembled by the consumer, which led to the highly customizable, highly successful Made-to-Measure storage system (1955). In 1957, Made-to-Measure furniture was awarded a silver medal at the 11th Trienniale in Milan and crowned with the Le Signe d’Or in Belgium.

Today Pastoe continues to manufacture formally simple, high-quality furniture, including cabinet systems, storage pieces, chairs, and more. Many of Pastoe’s designs have attained an iconic status, such as Cees Braakman’s SMO5 Chair (1958), one of the first stools to be entirely fabricated in steel wire, and Studio Pastoe’s L-Series Cabinet (1979).  Recent collaborations include projects with the late, great Belgian designer Maarten Van Severen, German designer Konstantin Grcic, and rising-star Dutch studio Scholten & Baijings.

Pastoe’s objects have been exhibited in galleries and museums broadly, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, and the  in Amsterdam.

* All images courtesy of Pastoe