Etre Moderne is a designstudio located in Hasselt (Belgium),
founded in 2015 by Philippe Vermeersch & Caroline Gielen, specialized in lighting, furniture & object design. We offer designconcepts as well as productdevelopment for your concepts till production, or both.
Our style is no-nonsense, straightforward & unpretentious. At first sight simple, but sophisticated in detail. Different materials and techniques are like a common thread through the designs. We produce local (Belgium), becauce we want that the little amount of craftsmen we have, still have a future. We appreciate very much there expertise and we like to discuss with them to achieve the best results. Our intention is to make quality objects for life (and beyond). Therefore we are rather reluctant to produce a lot of designs .
Philippe Vermeersch concept, design & development
(°79) Master Product Development, Antwerp
Before establishing his own practice in Hasselt, Philippe worked for 15 years as a pro-duct designer for architect Bart Lens (Lensass architects), managing his product design projects as well as designing graphics and scenography.
Caroline Gielen concept & design
(°79) Graduated at The Design Academy, Eindhoven
Caroline joins Etre Moderne as partner in crime. Along her job as teacher, she supports the concept & design process. The ceramic objects are artisanal made by Caroline.
3D cad engineering
Materials & technologies analysis
Supplier identification
Prototype verification
Consultancy
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" Forms of modern life may differ in quite a few respects – but what unites them all is precisely their fragility, temporariness, vulnerability and inclination to constant change. To ‘be modern’ means to modernize – compulsively, obsessively; not so much just ‘to be’, let alone to keep its identity intact, but forever ‘becoming’, avoiding completion, staying underdefined. Each new structure which replaces the previous one as soon as it is declared old-fashioned and past its use-by date is only another momentary settlement – acknowledged as temporary and ‘until further notice’. Being always, at any stage and at all times, ‘post-something’ is also an undetachable feature of modernity. As time flows on, ‘modernity’ changes its forms in the manner of the legendary Proteus . . . What was some time ago dubbed (erroneously) 'post-modernity' and what I've chosen to call, more to the point, 'liquid modernity', is the growing conviction that change is the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty. A hundred years ago 'to be modern' meant to chase 'the final state of perfection' - now it means an infinity of improvement, with no 'final state' in sight and none desired. "
Zygmunt Baumann, Liquid Modernity, 2000
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