Knots & Beads Curtain, New York

Year:	2013
Location:	New York
Designer:	Hella Jongerius
Client:	United Nations
Contractor:	Koninklijke Tichelaar B.V.
Project type:	art & design
Product:	30,000 glazed beads of porcelain, knotted in 6 sizes and threaded on cotton thread in a grid of 7 meters high and 14 meters wide

Koninklijke Tichelaar was asked by Hella Jongerius to manufacture, but also to be the project contractor for the creation of an artwork for a lounge in the United Nations building in Manhattan. This famous building, dating back to 1951, whose construction involved Le Corbusier, among others, is being fully renovated. The Dutch government was asked by the UN to thoroughly renovate and redesign the North Delegates Lounge, a meeting place for thousands of policy-makers from the 192 Member States. ‘Knots & Beads Curtain’ is a curtain seven metres high and fourteen metres wide, consisting of over twenty thousand handmade porcelain beads that were partly dipped in a transparent glaze, using an old technique employed by Koninklijke Tichelaar. These unique beads, which we designed in close collaboration with Hella Jongerius, were then strung on a grid inspired by historical fishing nets from Dutch maritime history.