A journey into production
Cees Braakman's American study journey concerned the inside of furniture making. A local history of UMS Pas-Toe records him visiting production businesses in 1947 and taking particular interest in Herman Miller. The useful subject is what a factory could learn, as well as what a designer could see.1
A finished chair can travel as an image. Production knowledge involves other questions: how material is prepared, how a curve is formed, what equipment is needed and which operations can be repeated. Those questions help explain why travel could change the offer of a furniture company.
The product and the process belonged together
Pastoe's account connects Braakman's interest in American design with Charles and Ray Eames and with a growing emphasis on adaptable storage. It presents the factory's development through manufacturing and customer choice together.2
This provides a way to look beyond the surface of a period cabinet. A curved part or repeated component is also evidence of decisions about making. The visual result can be considered alongside the process that allowed a manufacturer to offer it again.
The histories differ about the exact year when Braakman succeeded his father at Pastoe. That uncertainty need not be hidden behind a confident date. The documented production journey and subsequent body of work support the central account without requiring that disagreement to be silently resolved.
Choice becomes part of the furniture
Made-to-Measure brought a further question into the relationship: what should the customer be able to decide? Pastoe's heritage account describes a cabinet system that could be configured and later expanded. The company was offering a vocabulary of possible arrangements. 2
The significance for Braakman's career lies in the connection between those choices and the factory behind them. Adaptability has to be made possible through compatible parts and repeatable work. A system is therefore a collaborative achievement, as well as a design idea.
A manufacturer leaves an archive
Kunsthal's centenary presentation brought sketches, advertising, photographs and exhibition displays into Pastoe's history. Those materials extend the story beyond a row of finished products. 3
They are also a useful reminder of what can be brought home from a production journey. The result may appear in a cabinet, but it can continue in the way a factory thinks, presents its work and gives a household something to choose.
