Gert Voorjans: A Sense of Place

“It takes time to understand a place and to know it, and I want to achieve that in a home – to create something that is unexpected and always surprising,” says Gert Voorjans. Every one of the multi-talented designer’s projects, whether a hotel, house or room, is designed to delight the senses and encourage the imagination. With a diverse range of artistic influences and decades of global travel, including many years living in Asia, Voorjans brings his eclectic and distinctive voice to everything he does.

Colour, Craft and Character are the “three C’s” that define Studio GV, whether for the new Shangri-La Hotel, located in a natural reserve in Hangzhou, China, opening this May, or in his latest collaboration, a rug collection titled “Joy”, made with the Carpet Society. The hand-knotted rugs are made with soft New Zealand wool and jute, and are colourful and inviting. He insisted on making round carpets as well as. square. “I like the round element because it gives a softness to the room and it is more playful. Four angles can be very fixed, while round is more inviting and generous,” he explains. Ocean is a bold, blue collection is inspired by water and the ocean, but it also loosely connects to the Japanese printmaker Hokusai and his blue and white waves, in their graphic, dynamic form. Vulcano is grounded in reds, oranges and pinks and linked to fiery power and force of volcanos. “I see the floor as an untapped canvas, a foundation for the entire room’s energy,” he says. A third collection, Megalopolis, is made with a blend of hemp and cotton, and was inspired from the landscapes of the West Lake in Hangzhou, where he had been spending time doing the Shangri-La Hotel. In this collection, a lotus flower unfurls over rug in shades of orange and red, and speaks about resilience and strength. The Line, the fourth and last series in the collection, is an elegant, linear rug that serves as a structured balance to the nature-inspired and organic forms of the others. In fact, Voorjans encourages the idea of layering the carpets, to create more movement and to invite people to lay about the rugs and spend time on the them. “The world is getting colder, more distant, especially with technology, and we need to wrap ourselves in cosy, soft things to feel warm and connected,” he says.

This idea of connections is a through line in his creative universe. Through patterns, materials and objects, Voorjans establishes a sense of place, of the time and of the individual client. With so much uniformity in the world, whether it be a Starbucks in every city or the repetitive visuals on Instagram, creating a true identity and sense of place in a space is Voorjans magic. “It’s important to have all kinds of tastes and styles – it might not be your own but we need that, we need different ideas,” he explains. After a long and successful career, what inspires the designer these days? “Nature,” he says. “I need to be out in the garden, in nature. It’s simplicity and beauty, this gives me inspiration nowadays.” But country life doesn’t mean the prolific designer is slowing down anytime soon. With hotel openings, rug collections, and a new fabric collection with Jim Thompson already launching this spring, Voorjans continues to delight and keep us inspired.

https://www.gertvoorjans.com/

@voorjans

www.carpet-society.com

@carpetsociety