“At the beginning of my career, my generation wanted to come up with completely new ideas and forms,” says the Dutch master jeweller and industrial designer, Gijs Bakker. “We thought we could reinvent the world.” The traditional sculpting tool, the focus of the latest episode of On Design directed by Stefan Heinrichs, proved an ironic talisman for the unorthodox designer and co-founder of Droog Design. As an art school graduate, Bakker quickly dispensed with his classical training and embraced the modernism prevalent in the 1960s. “Very simply, my journey is three-part: taught craft, rejected craft and now, where the computer has taken over, I need to go back to the skills of craft,” says Bakker, currently exhibiting a major retrospective alongside Emmy van Leersum at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. “However, I always wanted to be a designer, not a craftsman.” 

The Gijs+Emmy Spectacle runs through August 24 at The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.