Persona

Bakker, Gijs

1942-present

He was trained as a jewelry and industrial designer at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and at the Konstfack Skolen in Stockholm. His designs cover jewelry, home accessories, household appliances, furniture, interiors, public spaces, and exhibitions. He has worked for numerous companies, including Polaroid, Artifort, Droog Design, Castelijn, HEMA, Royal VKB, and ENO Studio. With Renny Ramakers, Bakker founded Droog Design in Amsterdam in 1993, a Dutch “brand” of products created by an array of international designers. With Ramakers, he was the selector and art director of all products for Droog Design until 2009.
He has also taught design at various schools for more than 40 years. After teaching at the Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) for more than 15 years, in 2010 he was appointed Head of the Masters Program.
In 1996, he established the Chi ha paura...? (Italian for “Who’s afraid of…?”) Foundation in 1996 together with Marijke Vallanzasca. He investigates the relation between craft and design in his work. Bakker travels around the world to present workshops and lectures about his own work, Droog Design, CHP, and Yii (HAN Gallery) and is frequently a member of juries.
His work is represented widely in international public and private collections worldwide and he is the recipient of many accolades, among them the 2011 Sanoma Lifetime Achievement Award (Amsterdam), Gijs Bakker was most recently honored in 2012 as “Best International Jewelry Designer,” by the Andrea Palladio International Jewelry Awards.

Getty Thesaurus

"Gijs Bakker." Designers & Books. http://www.designersandbooks.com/designer/bio/gijs-bakker.