Klein Agency
1. How would you describe what you do?
We are a design-build, architecture and furniture design studio. We focus on simple solutions to living well.
2. At what time do you start your day and what’s the thing you do first?
We start our day relatively late. This is a by-product of working deep into the evenings.
It always begins with either a flat white with broer bretel or a simple aeropress at home.
3. What is the reason you started doing what you do? What makes you so passionate about it?
We started klein agency as a way for the two of us to work together. What began as a mixture of architectural design, culinary explorations,
hosting the public in our studio, furniture design, quickly became an obsession for us.
The sky has always been the limit with our space. We like to keep our “klein” compound as flexible as possible, allowing us to reimagine our activities constantly.
This constant internal assessment keeps us fresh, keeps us alive.
It’s very difficult to image doing anything else. We love what we do.
Being trusted with the responsibility of imagining new spaces and furniture for clients is both demanding and rewarding.
4. What or who is your source of inspiration?
We draw a lot of inspiration from the attention to materiality found in Japanese design, and the openness of the Californian spirit,
expansive and defined by big nature. We also draw a lot of inspiration from unusual sources. We are inspired by strange combinations.
When perfection is contrasted in the same moment by imperfection. When the precision of an industrially produced object is
contaminated by the imprecision of the human hand. When you contrast the old and the new together in the same breath. We like those uncomfortable moments.
5. Which is your all time favorite design?
The Eames Lounge is a timeless favorite. There is a shot of it sitting in a SANAA designed house in a plum grove… Classic.
6. Do you think you’ll keep walking down this path in the future or do you have other creative calls?
At this point, having just released our debut furniture collection, we are very happy and excited where we are.
But both of us have always been somewhat on-the-move and never too bound by one single thing or place. The future is an unknown and we love to go where life takes us.
7. Which piece of work would you consider your very own masterpiece?
So far, the culmination of both our efforts has been the klein home collection 01. Maša leans towards the low rocker and Jon leans towards the tall rocker.
8. If you had a time machine, in what year would you be living?
Not sure I’d want to go back in time. Maybe I'd like to do a quick jump 20 years ahead, for a sneak peak into the structure of our society and our own lives.
But then I think I’d honestly just want to enjoy the ride that we are currently in (Maša).
I’d either go back to the days when Frank and Dean were gracing the radio waves and setting the style cues, when cars were
still made of steel with curves that lasted for days, and life was a bit more simple.
Or, I’d jump forward in the future a couple hundred years. The potential of our civilization to advance its position within this universe,
to understand our biology to the extent we can manipulate it for the better.
How quickly we have advanced in the past decades only indicates some serious achievements in the near future. (Jon)
9. Cookies and milk, or chips and soda?
Chips and soda. (Maša)
Cookies and milk. (Jon)
10. If you could give yourself one single piece of advice before you started this adventure, what would it be?
Don’t over stress. Be patient. Good things always take time.
Write here...
