Torre wall rack valet | Andries and Hiroko van Onck | Inipress for Magis

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Torre wall rack valet | Andries and Hiroko van Onck | Inipress for Magis | Italy

Andries van Onck was born in Amsterdam in 1928. Amongst his early teachers were Gerrit Thomas Rietveld from the Dutch De Stijl group; later he studied in Ulm at the Hochschule für Gestaltung with Tomas Maldonado, Walter Zeischegg, and Max Bill. In 1959 he started as a designer at Olivetti in Italy as an assistant to Ettore Sottsass. In 1965 he opened his own studio in Milan, where his wife, Hiroko Takeda. later joined him. The pair has created products in many different sectors, including household appliances, furniture, machine tools and electronic equipment. Andries van Onck has an extensive website and says of his trade:

“From the very start I am also interested in the theoretical aspects of design, such as design language, morphology and semiotics, and I spend much time as a teacher, to write articles and even two books.”

Hiroko Takeda was born in 1945. She graduated from the Tokyo Academy. Between 1968 and 1972, she cooperated with various Japanese furniture design companies. Since 1972, she has been living in Italy with Andries Van Onck. She has designed household appliances for Zanussi and Bertazzoni, intercoms and videophones for Amplyvox, cutlery for Serafino Zani, and furniture and accessories for Magis.

In collaboration, they won an award at the XI Compasso d’Oro (1979) for their Habitat switches. Both also remain extremely active teachers of design.

Here is the Torre wall rack valet by Andries and Hiroko van Onck for Inipress for Magis in red. The rack is versatile and adjustable, featuring four hooks that flip down and eight, immobile hooks at the top of the rack located between the flip down hooks. The Torre wall rack measures 23-1/2” length by 3-1/8” height by 1-3/4” depth. Image source: eBay.