When Lincoln Center chose Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects to design its new visitor center—David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center—one aspect of the firm’s work that held sway with the selection committee was its dedication to the integration of ecologically sensitive and environmentally sustainable materials in their building designs.
This passion has taken architects Williams and Tsien to every corner of the world in search of distinctive, sustainable natural materials. In their travels they have also met and collaborated with like-minded artists, craftsmen, and designers such as award-winning textile artist, Claudy Jongstra. Late last year, Claudy Jongstra was invited to team with Williams and Tsien on the design of a monumental work of art for the David Rubenstein Atrium.
Born in the Netherlands in 1963, Ms. Jongstra was trained as a fashion designer. She first came under the spell of felt in 1994 when she saw a Mongolian yurt on display in Nederlands Textielmuseum. The tent had a pattern of laid-in colors. She recognized the technique from pictures, but was overwhelmed by the material itself and the colors.
Jongstra quickly mastered the process of felting and started to make fabrics in which wool was felted with silk fibers or was combined with transparent silk organza. In the mid-nineteen nineties this was unheard of, but the process yielded a remarkable combination of transparency and density, of elegance and rawness, of craft and art.
Her tireless experimentation with felting techniques is motivated in part by her fascination for the traditional felt production as well as the durable and technical possibilities of wool. The result is an extraordinary range of textiles that are as rugged as they are refined.
Jongstra keeps the entire process from raw materials to end product in her own hands, so that she can operate independently and to be able to work sustainably. Jongstra tends her own flock of rare Drenthe Heath sheep, contributing to the survival of this age-old breed in the Netherlands and to the preservation of the natural landscape. Establishing her own dyeworks has made it possible for her to color her products with natural dyestuffs rather than synthetic ones. Jongstra is laying out a hortus botanicus where she will grow historic varieties of dye-plants, starting with madder, St. John’s Wort, and African marigold.
Jongstra’s textiles have been used in collections by leading fashion designers such as John Galliano, Donna Karan, and Christian Lacroix. In the late 1990s, the Jedi warriors in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace wore coats of Jongstra’s felt.
At present, her most important projects involve the embellishment of the interiors of buildings with wall coverings and rugs. She has designed wall hangings and installations for the Dutch government building, the Catshuis, the Dutch Embassy in Berlin, and the entrance to the Public Library in Amsterdam. She closely cooperates in this work with architects such as Jo Coenen, Claus en Kaan, and Rem Koolhaas. She recently was awarded the prestigious Dutch prize for applied arts and architecture: The Prins Bernhard Cultuurfondsprijs.
At Lincoln Center, Jongstra is working in close collaboration with architect Tod Williams on the design of a 97-foot fabric installaton made of felted wool and silk in a palette of gold and gray. The wall covering spans a second-story surface inside the new David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center. As with other large-scale fabric installations by Jongstra, the fabric takes on a painterly quality when viewed from below or from a distance. Captivating and decorative, Jonstra’s felt wall will also bring a feeling of warmth and visial softening to the double-heighted public space. As with other works created by Jongstra for public buildings, the felt also helps muffle sound and enhance acoustical balance. This is an especially important feature in the new Atrium where live performances will be offered free to the public each week.
Claudy Jongstra has succeeded in turning a very traditional material with an old-fashioned image into a modern and desirable fashion fabric. In doing so, she has attracted the attention of major museums around the world. Her work is included in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, New York; The Rhode Island School of Design Museum, and Fries Museum, Leeuwarden. Felt Felt is a non-woven cloth made by compacting fibers into a matted fabric. It is the oldest form of fabric known to humankind, predating weaving and knitting. There are three ingredients needed to make felt: wool, water, and soap. The first stage in the felting process is to lay out layers of tufts of wool. Rubbing water and soap into the wool layers makes the fibers interlock, and the friction of continued rubbing results in the formation of felt. The remains of felt have been found in Turkey dating as far back to 6,500 BC. Highly sophisticated felted artifacts were found preserved in permafrost in a tomb in Siberia and dated to 600 AD. Felt can be of any color, and made into any shape or size. While some types of felt are very soft, some are tough enough to form construction materials.
Felt
Felt is a non-woven cloth made by compacting fibers into a matted fabric. It is the oldest form of fabric known to humankind, predating weaving and knitting. There are three ingredients needed to make felt: wool, water, and soap. The first stage in the felting process is to lay out layers of tufts of wool. Rubbing water and soap into the wool layers makes the fibers interlock, and the friction of continued rubbing results in the formation of felt. The remains of felt have been found in Turkey dating as far back to 6,500 BC. Highly sophisticated felted artifacts were found preserved in permafrost in a tomb in Siberia and dated to 600 AD. Felt can be of any color, and made into any shape or size. While some types of felt are very soft, some are tough enough to form construction materials.
