Explaining the concept of  Hergebruik  Studio from Rotterdam did not turn out to be easy. To find out what this quite peculiar shop in Rotterdam has in its offer I contacted the owner, Jan deHaas, who told me about the objects of re-use type (Dutch. hergebruik).

When did it all begin and how did the idea develop?

The Studio  Hergebruik  has been working since 2005, establishing it was my initiative. My intention was not starting up the activity directed towards concrete commercial objectives but rather making the action space together with the exhibition space available for the friendly designers. In three years this original hobby has become the leading company on the Dutch market of re-using. My aim was dissemination of the realisations created by young artists and designers in all aspects of the product development process - technical, logistic, aesthetic marketing so also through promotion, sales etc. The Studio began with only five designers whereas now we represent over 70 of them, not only from Holland, but also from Germany, France, Estonia, Finland and Switzerland. The choice is vast: clothes, furniture, lighting, bags, gifts, even poetry. Thus, now we create the place of meeting and inspiration, the gallery, the shop, the conference and educational venue. All in one, for every person interested in products created by using cradle-to-cradle method, developing Braungart's and McDonnough's theory, waste-free.

What does such an activity look like during the year?

The Studio has quite a considerable contribution in educational projects directed towards students. Only in the first half of 2008 about 800 young people participated in workshops organised by us. Moreover, we organize open meetings with academic experts from Rotterdam and Delft. Generally speaking, the number of customers is decreasing, the objects are costly, they are created in small amounts and they require greater amount of workload. However, the interest in this type of market is increasing rapidly. I suspect that this may be due to the awareness and interest in ecology and also some kind of fashion to surround oneself with original objects. We do not doubt that there will be even better. Not long ago, we were a unique concept but we are still observing the growing number of the followers in the whole country.


The place of managing good practises in the design is famous Magazyn Praga in Warsaw. What has changed after moving to "Koneser" and can the ideas for good interiors be developed in Poland - this questions will be answered by the owner Łukasz  Drgas. 

You have run Magazyn Praga for almost two years. How do you evaluate its development in this time?

 We really exist for almost two years and I consider this to be a success of some kind. At the beginning, the format of Magazyn assumed the sales and exhibitions. Unfavourable coincidence was that we were seated in the place which soon became hostile to us and that was the reason of certain problems with our functioning. The new owner of former vodka factory "Koneser" - the companies BBI Development and Juvenes gave us a hand and thanks to his positive attitude we can still work and even develop. And I think we indeed develop because we have more and more customers and visitors. Soon we will present new projects and get new contractors. New place and new website have given us the new, earlier unknown opportunities.

This is one of few places where you can get the most modern design and vintage. Apart from that, MP works as an exhibition platform and offers other products from the district.

 Magazyn is a shop without an accurate profile - the idea of the store is broad and that is why we concentrate on both: new and old objects. Of course, there are phenomena that we are more keen on - young Polish design, the classics of Polish design. Apart from that, we started to import goods from abroad, treating this as an attractive extension of our offer. It is mainly about small objects, something that  could be  called "small  design" - everyday use objects which not only are useful but also interesting and pretty. This introduction of foreign range was a kind of necessity but it  also considerably enriched our offer. And it was a necessity because our country lacks the companies which produce cool and unexpensive things which may at the same time be treated as design.

And what are your plans for the near future?

On October, 3rd we are opening the exhibition of the great group 5.5 Designers from France. This is our second exhibition after Qubus which made its debut in our MP and then it went e.g. to the Castle in Cieszyn, it will also soon be in Łódź. Our exhibition activity was unfortunately stopped after Qubus because of the problems with our previous place. Now, when we are in a new place and hope to stay here for long, we come back to working as a gallery and show the project specially prepared for Warsaw "79 sq. m.  de  5.5  designers ", which may be called their little retrospective. Of course, we would not have coped with such a great enterprise if not the cooperation with the French Institute in Warsaw, which is a co-organiser of this event.

Do people visit MP more often? I suppose you cannot complain about the attendance?

 I have to say with pleasure that we have more and more recipients and customers. It was certainly a good idea to extend our offer. The exhibition activity also does well , so it was very unfavourable to suspend it in the previous place. The foreigners visit us because they are encouraged by the press articles in their countries. Praga is for them as interesting as Polish design, therefore we have many guests from abroad. And the Polish visitors are mainly young, open to innovation, bored with the trivial offer of the shopping centres. Also, more and more often the designers themselves contact me, encouraged by the things they heard about MP. I myself also search for young creators - currently I have in my shop the products of the groups Symbioza and Lampo, which are very popular. I think that in general these are good times for design in our country.


And how is it in Kraków? The interview with Przemek Krupski and Bartek Kieżun who for almost three years have run the gallery "Miejsce", where you can try out the legendary examples of Polish design and also eat and read.

You together have run "Miejsce"

 for almost 3 years. Here, the main role is played by the design  of 1960s and 1970s. "Miejsce" is something which we can't treat as a job. We spend here plenty of time and surely the actions we do should according to all the rules be called a job but we have picked Miejsce as a way of life. Besides, it is a shop, a gallery, a concept store, where you can see what we do. We run creative furniture recycling, we find unconventional furniture from the past and give it a new visage, sometimes by changing the appearance, sometimes the function. This is done in single items or short series.

 Apart from such daily activity we also do a lot of other things. We started to work on stage design. We designed the interiors for the film "Edina" (within the project 30 minutes) for Nenad   Micovic. We also helped the team from the School of Film in Katowice. We created fashion sessions together with Łukasz  Sakiewicz  for "Wysokie obcasy", we also prepared the materials for "Playboy" together. The workshop Manto from Kraków displays in our shop hens laying golden eggs - conception toys which are very popular among adults. We also exhibit the works of students and graduates of ASP (Academy of Fine Arts), you can also buy a magazine "DIK Fagazine" in our shop, published by Karol Radziszewski. We also designed the interiors of the luxury apartments Natalia, Edina, and Maja in Kazimierz (district of Krakow) and self-service laundry Frania Cafe. Since August 2007 we have run Miejsce.bar together with Aga Szklarz. And this is how it happened that there are two places: Miejsce.sklep [shop] and Miejsce.bar.

That's a lot! Where did you get the idea? When did it all begin? And how?

It started really banally, we started with doing things for ourselves, for our own flats. Our friends, when they saw the effects, asked us for doing something similar for them. And something which was to be a remedy for shortage on the interior design market, became our job. It turned out that we feel best in the climate of 1950s - 1970s, which not long ago were completely unappreciated. We were delighted by their form. Furniture was created by artists, it has great proportions. And to be honest, it all really began a long time ago. The process of arriving at opening Miejsce was long. We both used to work at that time and managing to combine preparing the first projects and work was not easy. At certain point we said: now or never! We turned everything upside down: the flat was converted into a magazine. Simultaneously, we were renovating our place with friends. Work in the morning, then renovating, at night working on armchairs, lamps, and refining the details.

Are you designers?

We have a complete education in this direction. Przemek is a graduate of cultural studies in Poznań and I am a graduate of cultural anthropology in Kraków. But to show you some connection - Przemek's Master's thesis was about architecture in the times of globalisation and glocalisation, coming back trends and neomodernism and I wrote new notes about camp, developing the thoughts of Susan  Sontag.

Where do you take the furniture to work on from? And where do you get the ideas for its metamorphosis?

 We search everywhere. Markets, fairs, liquidated offices - we travel over Poland because it turns out that it's easier to find a good quality artdeco than design  from 1950s - 1970s. In Poland, of course. Abroad it is better. That is why our friends curse us - we can come back from holidays with our car crammed with objects just up to the roof. "Stop, there was something there!" - this was the most frequently heard shout in the car during holidays this year. And the obligatory places to visit are foreign markets. Sometimes it happens that our customers bring us something. We share information with friendly antique shops whose target is older objects.

 And the ideas are born during the discussions, not to call them quarrels. Sometimes the elegance wins, sometimes sense of humour. We look for colours, patterns. As Elsie  de  Wolfe said: „It's beige! My favourite colour!”. But only in the circumstances in which those words were said - so looking at the Parthenon, not in the flat. We know what we don't like and we always have creative battles about what we like. We can keep an armchair for months before we find something that makes us both satisfied. Sometimes it's just a shot in the dark. We find the material and we know that it will be ideal for that.

How much time does such a metamorphosis take? What is the most difficult to do?

After finding the proper solution for a piece of furniture (and this may last for long) it is not a long process. We cooperate with a great workshop. There they do all the renovation works which we can't do because we don't have appropriate skills. This is just the issue of quality. They know how and we know what should be done.