Every other week, together with Sjiek / Het Belang Van Limburg, we present a Limburg design icon, or one that is well on its way to becoming one. This week it is Bowl n° 1 by Casimir.

WHAT: Bowl n° 1 is a stylized, solid wooden piece of furniture and ties together the table and the bowl.

YEAR: 1991

Casimir – a designer who is just as special as he is distinguished – prefers to call himself a furniture artist. Since graduating in 1991 as an Industrial Designer in Genk, he has been able to plan his craft and designs with unwavering obstinacy. The result? An impressive oeuvre with masterful and traditionally crafted oak furniture pieces.

Bowl n° 1 was part of a series of furniture with which he graduated (the same year incidentally as Raf Simons and Jan – Z33 – Boelen). “As a student, I was rather late,” laughs Casimir. “At that time, no one had any trust in that I would be able to do anything, but during the Easter leave, I got going.” With great honour that is and his work was also noticed by the Ghent gallery Ziggurat. They brought him along to presentation at the Kortrijk Interior Biennial, a first step towards the international design forum.

SCALE / SIZE

Casimir regards himself as a maker rather than as a designer. He builds everything himself and always tells his own story. “I like to start from a recognizable form and then start using it. Consider it a deconstruction. This is how I want to make the reader, user or viewer think, “he says. “Bowl n° 1 is all about the meaning of the word bowl. We know it as a “saucer” or a “container”, for example of fruit, but at the same time it is also a measure of proportions, such as the scale in architecture. So call Bowl n° 1 a word game around the scale of the scale. ”That idea led to a 30-centimeter-high piece of furniture, with a diameter of 120 centimeters, which is centered between a table and a scale.

MASSIVE

Nowadays scale n° 1 is called Shell1, but has remained unchanged for a quarter of a century. The counter now stands at more than 200 pieces sold or to make the impact of the bowl entirely comprehensible: one copy has been sold every month and a half. Bowl n° 1 is without a doubt a reference for the timeless beauty of Casimir’s oeuvre. Both solid and consistent, stripped of all the fuss and from which the oak soul of the business resounds. Characterized planed: all Casimir.

Schell1 has a target price of 8,715 euros for the version in oak, walnut (9,240 euros) and cherry wood (9,605 euros). www.casimir.be