Cees Braakman

No designer has been so intrinsically linked with Pastoe as Cees Braakman.

Cees Braakman's father Dirk was the managing director of Pastoe for many years and Cees spent much time in the factory in his youth, working many different jobs before he became chief designer in 1945.

From 1945 to 1978, he was head of the Pastoe design team and was responsible for the development of the first modern furniture line. He created a clear and coherent collection of furniture conceived as functional objects, such as the U+N and Berken series of plywood cabinets, reconceived by Pastoe in 2013 as the Jubilee cabinet to celebrate their 100th anniversary.

In 1958 he designed one of the first chairs to be entirely fabricated from steel wire, the SM05 chair, which Pastoe have brought back into production alongside other pieces from Braakman's wire collection.