Centuries of wood
During the MaterialDistrict Rotterdam (March 2019 in Ahoy Rotterdam) Antoine Verhofstede presented ‘Eeuwenhout’. Antoine Verhofstede’s passion for wood began with a trip through America when he stumbled upon old and abandoned wooden barns and buildings. They stand ‘in the middle of nowhere’, as silent witnesses of past activity. Once they were built with wood from trees from the immediate vicinity: different types of wood, usually more than a hundred years old. Now they still defy wind and weather, but no longer have any function. Here and there these ‘barns’ are dismantled and the wood reused by the local farmers. There Antoine Verhofstede got the idea to give the best batches of wood a new destination in exclusive European interiors. That meant the start of ‘Eeuwenhout’. And now he is looking worldwide for old barns, houses and factory buildings where wooden beams, planks and poles have proven their worth for more than a century in mainly authentic American barns. According to the Eeuwenhout website, the dimensions, durability and stability together with their lived-in appearance make for an aesthetically unique material.
More in Innovative Materials 2019 number 2