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Sonneveld House²

In the intervention for the Sonneveld House, Petra Blaisse responds to the original interior of the house from the 1930s exposing “the other side”, and taking it into the contemporary design world.

This year Het Nieuwe Instituut invited Petra Blaisse to respond to the original interior of the Sonneveld House, designed in the early 1930s by architecture firm Brinkman en Van der Vlugt in the Dutch Functionalist style, with the interior created in collaboration with furniture designer W.H. Gispen.

The first floor of Sonneveld House features a sequence of open spaces. Generous expanses of fenestration set in elegant steel frames ensure an almost borderless connection with the surrounding garden. When daylight floods the interior, the room and furniture almost appear to float.

Inside Outside (the design office founded by interior and landscape designer Petra Blaisse) enhances that quality with the simple addition of mirrored floors to both the interior and garden.

By exposing “the other side” of Sonneveld House, Inside Outside strengthens the connection between inside and outside. With this addition the office responds to the three principles of Dutch Functionalism: light, air and space.