Biography: Droog’s collaboration with Dutch designer Jurgen Bey started in the early
nineties and resulted in the design of, amongst others, Kokon furniture, Tree-trunk
bench and St. Petersburg chair for the Droog collection.
Born in Soest, the Netherlands in 1965, Jurgen Bey is one of the most renowned
Dutch designers. He studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven and has since run
studios independently or in collaboration with others, while teaching at the Design
Academy Eindhoven in previous years, and currently, at the Royal College of Art in
London. Bey’s work includes product, furniture, interior and public space design, and
is produced by his studio, or by companies such as Droog, Royal Tichelaar Makkum, and Moooi. Bey
is known as a critical designer, driven to understand the world and to question it in a unique manner.
He has been awarded the 2005 Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds Award, the 2005 Harrie Tillie Award from
Stedelijk Museum, Roermond and the Interior Award 2003 from Lensvelt/de Architect, for his meeting
room for the Interpolis company.
In 2002 Bey formed Studio Makkink & Bey with Rianne Makkink. Working together and supported by a
design team, they analyze content and search for the relation of things and their users. In their words,
“town planning, architecture and landscape architecture are indissolubly connected to products and
can be in symbiosis; the lamp has influenced architecture and the built home the products for the
interior.”