design brief (they did not believe in making briefs), and with Pierre Paulin designing residential chairs, I decided that I should try and explore the contract market in order to plow another furrow.” In 1962, Artifort broke in with Harcourt’s 042 chair, designed for airport seating. The chair was initially chosen for the airport of Lima, Peru; the substantial royalties paid for Harcourt’s first home. He went on to design many chairs and multiple seating solutions for public spaces for Artifort, including an unusual honeycomb ensemble, the 620, in 1966. In 1970, he designed a remarkable chaise longue: a single flattened tube that folds back on itself.

In 1964, Artifort opened dramatic new showrooms, designed by Liang Ie, in the vast beer cellars of the old Maastricht brewery that had housed its factory since the 1930s. In one gallery, he painted the brick walls and vaulted ceilings white; in another, the brick was left raw. The floors were carpeted with coconut matting and spotlights provided theatrical lighting. In the radical contrast of ancient and new, the showrooms were way ahead of their time and helped raise Artifort’s profile as a daring, futuristic company. In 1972, Leen Averink redesigned the company’s logo in a bold bright green; it is still Artifort’s trademark color.

Then, in 1975, at the peak of Artifort’s success, Kho Liang Ie, who had been such an effective guide, died of cancer. And in 1979, Paulin severed his relationship with Artifort (he started designing for them again in 1990). An additional blow came with the retirement of Harry Wagemans in 1986. He was succeeded by his son, Henri-Jean, who presided over the 1990 purchase of Artifort by the major French contract furniture company Steelcase Strafor, which saw Artifort as a ready-made enhancement for its more prosaic product line. But the two companies’ cultures could not have been more different, says Monique Beaumont. “Ours were hand-made, craftsman products, and theirs were mass produced.” After four lackluster years, Artifort was taken over by the Dutch contract manufacturer Samas, resulting in another unsatisfactory four-year partnership. Neither company invested in new Artifort products and from 1990 to 1998, Artifort produced only one or two new products per year. This was too few to keep the company in the public eye and it gradually lost its leadership position. Eventually, “with financial troubles came uncertainty and unwillingness to experiment,” says Harcourt. “The life went out of it.”

Then, in 1998, Artifort was acquired by the Lande Group, a Dutch company that makes mid-range furniture for the regional contract market. Initially drawn to the company for its upholstery capabilities for Lande chairs, it began to invest in new Artifort designs. Artifort’s renewal came as it began to work with a wider range of Dutch designers such as Michiel van der Kley, Toine van den Heuvel, Karel Boonzaaijer and Dick Spierenburg, and especially René Holten, who has designed many impressive pieces for Artifort, including the streamlined DoDo chair (1997), the Nina chair (2000) and the Ondo sofa (2003). His