Mart Stam

Mart Stam
(1899 - 1986)

Mart Stam was educated at the Royal Normal School of Amsterdam end completed his training by working in the "Grandrè Moliere Verhagen Kok" offices in Rotterdam.
From 1920 to 1924 he lived in Germany and Switzerland. Though not yet part of the Bauhaus School, he was already at this stage working and designing furniture made in tubular metal, following a trend which, evidently, was already fashionable at that time.
In 1925 he took part in a conference preparatory to the Werkbund Exhibition in Stuttgart an on this occasion he described a prototype chair in tubular metal without black legs, it was absolutely revolutionary. M.Stam was in Dessau and had the chance of studying town planning at the famous School Bauhaus.
In 1939 he become director of the "Amsterdam Insitute of Industrial Art", in 1948 of the Dreden Academy of Figurative Art and in 1950 of the Higher Institute Art in Berlin.
Stam also worked intensively as an architect, the following only recall some designs among which are the Theosophic Church in Amsterdam, in collaboration with L.Van der Vleicht and J.A. Weissenhoe, the Tobacco Factory in Rotterdam and the ambitious design for building the "Cloud Pillars" namely Office Blocks built in a structure of imposing pillars.