Bathroom Mat
Date: 1993
Commissioned by: droog, Amsterdam (available here)
Type: Industrial product
Hella Jongerius’ interest in plastics has led her to utilize a polyurethane rubber, normally adopted by the metallurgical industry for making moulds, which lends itself with remarkable flexibility to artisan experiments. In her approach, it is not the form that is the subject of design: if anything, the form is a means enabling the material to disclose its inner nature. Thus, in the bathroom mat, the ninety semi-spheres that make up a super-scale texturization, emerge from flatness to capture like drops of water the surrounding light. They exercise an immediate and irresistible appeal to the foot, which receives an unusual tactile sensation from the mat.