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OPPOSITE Concretes one-room

studio in the heart of Amsterdam.
While its reputation has been
built on designing maxed-out
interiors for the Supperclub
chain, its offices are grey on grey,
with banks of standard-size
desks and utilitarian shelving.

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RIGHT Supperclub Rome is located

in a former convent with white doors
leading into a windowless interior
(right). The bar is entirely red, while
the main lounge and dining area,
La Salle Neige (far right), is white all
over. One of the clubs signatures
is the big-bed dining experience.
At this location, 45 people can
eat and lounge comfortably on the
giant mattress.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CONCRETE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATES

BY ANNEKE BOKERN

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AMSTERDAM DESIGN FIRM CONCRETE HAS MADE ITS

MARK AS THE CREATIVE BRAINS BEHIND THE HUGELY
SUCCESSFUL SUPPERCLUB CHAIN. BUT THESE DAYS,
THEYRE UP TO A WHOLE LOT MORE THAN JUST CLUBS

Its much easier to nd a hip commercial interior

in Amsterdam thats been designed by Concrete
than one that hasnt. Restaurants, shops, clubs,
bars, cafs you name it. Whenever the citys
beautiful young things ock to a new spot with
a quirky interior, Concrete has surely been
involved. The basis for the design studios fame
was Supperclub, a restaurant cum-club concept
that took off in 1999 in Amsterdam and has since
become legendary. More recently, the brand
has gone global with branches in San Francisco,
Rome and Istanbul all designed by Concrete.

Strangely, however, its nearly impossible to

characterize the studios style. It can be all soft
woods and warmth one minute, or a compelling
mix of retro-futurism and white couch minimalism the next. More often than not, its interiors
are drenched in a single juicy colour.
According to Rob Wagemans, the man behind
Concrete, if theres any thread at all, its that
its designs play with conventions. The clients
inuence on our work is unusually big, but they
never get what they expect, he says. If someone
tells me theyve seen one of our projects and
want their project to look like that, then thats
exactly what they wont get. Doesnt that scare
clients off? On the contrary. It seems to work.
Ive never had to solicit for work in my life.
Wagemans, born in Eindhoven in 1973, certainly doesnt lack self-condence, but beyond
that hes a pretty average guy with closely cropped,
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thinning hair and a casual form of dressing in

jeans and dark blue pullovers. Our designs are
famous, but nobody knows me, he says in a
direct manner characteristic of his quick banter.
Im not like Philippe Starck. Youll never nd
my face on the cover of a magazine. We arent
hip we make hip, he adds. Its a neat oneliner thats obviously been used before, but the
sentiment isnt cynical.
Wagemans and his two former partners
designer Gilian Schrofer and interior architect
Erik van Dillen founded Concrete in 1997.
At the time, Wagemans was still studying at the
Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. Our
ofce was in a cellar, which may sound romantic
but wasnt really. We started working as a team
when we won a competition to design an ofce

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ABOVE The first Supperclub in

Amsterdam, open since 1999,
is the basis for Concretes stunning
success. Diners eat in the all-white
interior; the entertainment is a racy
mix of acrobats and drag queens.

for Cirque du Soleil. But we didnt want to make

that too public, because we were scared of becoming a ash in the pan. We wanted to assemble
a substantial portfolio rst.
Two years later, while they were still toiling away in relative obscurity, local gastronomic
entrepreneur Bert van der Leden asked them
to revamp the Supperclub, a restaurant with a
dinner performance space and an adjoining
members-only bar that had a stylishly, kinky twist
to it. Concrete knew exactly what he needed.
They immersed the all-white restaurant space in
icy white light and tted it with huge white beds
on which diners recline while watching acrobats
and drag queens perform in and around the
giant beds. One bar is entirely blood red with
heavy velvet curtains, while another is lled
with sofas, with mirrors covering the walls. The
washrooms (divided into hetero and homo) are
decked out in black ceramic tiles. Concrete turned
the two-level location into an all-round dinner/
nightclub experience with more than a touch of
unsettling sultriness. It was an instant success.
Most of their other projects, however, have a
completely different atmosphere. For the Dutch
coffee shop chain Coffee Company, they created
light and friendly interiors with latte-coloured

Supperclub Cruise travels

to various locations. Beneath the
ships sundeck is an all-white dinner
club with the signature big bed. The
all-black Bar Noir (below) combines
chromed steel, Forbo crocodile linoleum and skai leathercovered seats.

PHOTOS: TOP LEFT BY KIM VAN DER LEDEN; BOTTOM AND OPPOSITE COURTESY OF CONCRETE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATES

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RIGHT Lairesse Apotheek,

Concretes award-winning design for
a pharmacy in the round. The 522drawer floor-to-ceiling cabinets are
made of green Plexiglas, backlit
with green-filtered tube lighting. The
fake tree trunk plays with the idea
of nature versus artifice.

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BELOW The floors are oak at Nomads,

an Arabian-themed restaurant
and club in Amsterdam. Red-tinted
mirrors cover the walls, and metal
mesh curtains divide the dining areas.
The elaborate ceiling fixtures
were designed by Concrete and
made in Morocco.

tile walls and a bank of colourful backlit coffee

bean dispensers. Their interiors for the ice cream
parlour chain Australian Homemade are a
trendy version of industrial kitchens, with lots
of stainless steel and round edges, glass bricks
and bright orange accents. A few years later, they
created whats probably the coolest pharmacy
in the world (which won the Dutch Design Prize
in 2003). The retail area of Lairesse Apotheek
is surrounded by a circular backlit cabinet where
drugs are presented like jewels. A fake tree
trunk in the centre of the space plays with the
idea of nature versus artice.
Lately, Concrete has designed the cafs, restaurants and gift shops in the new Mercedes-Benz
Museum in Stuttgart and created several exhibition
designs for Dutch museums. However, Bert van
der Leden remains their main patron. Besides the
Amsterdam Supperclub, he has opened seven
other restaurants and bars and hired Concrete
to design them all.

The rms rocketing success has also led to

internal changes. By 2000, Erik van Dillen had
left the rm, followed by Gilian Schrofer in 2004.
Schrofer, a huge man with an equally large
beard, is quite a gure on the local design scene
and was the magazine-friendly face for the
studio. Schrofers ambitions were different from
mine, Wagemans says diplomatically. Schrofer
has said about his departure, I wanted to be able
to design a project that makes no prot, countering Concretes very pragmatic and typically
Dutch attitude toward commerce.
Although Schrofer set up his own business,
called Concern, in 2005 (which Wagemans
doesnt appreciate at all), he still has his ofce in
the same art deco building as Concrete, though
the two designers rarely meet. In fact, the building, the former home of a Catholic youth
organization located in the centre of the city,
also houses two of their joint projects: Club
More and the Moroccan-style lounge restaurant
Nomads, both owned by van der Leden.
Concretes studio is on the third oor, in what
was once the gymnasium. The open space,
with high ceilings and a big window front, houses
a utilitarian-looking system of grey cabinets,
shelves and folders and rows of grey desks very
Kafkaesque, though two years ago, when there
were half the number of desks, it looked less
like a production line. Concrete has grown
from nine to 25 employees in that time.
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In 2005, Wagemans founded Concrete

Reinforced, an architectural branch of the company, set up in a small ofce space in the red
light district. He has teamed up with an old school
friend, architect Erik-Jan Vermeulen, to work
on various international projects, including a
condominium in Mexico and a master plan for
a Dutch university campus. The interior branch
of Concrete, meanwhile, is busy working on two
local hotel interiors and two pool bars in Singapore. New Supperclubs, in London, Singapore
and L.A., are also in the pipe.
There is the pending risk, of course, that the
growing Supperclub chain might turn into a
kind of Starbucks, though Concrete has managed
to give each location its own identity while tick-

BELOW The ice cream chain Australian

Homemade has the look of an industrial
kitchen, with lots of stainless steel
and rounded edges. The atmosphere
is slick but altogether different to
that of Concretes other interior projects.

Hyundais brand shops

in South Korea offer customers extra
services. Concretes vision for the
chain is hyper-mod, with curving steel
walls contrasting a muted image of
a forest on the back wall. Jurgen Beys
tree trunk bench is among the bespoke
seating options.

PHOTOS: TOP COURTESY OF CONCRETE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATES, BOTTOM COURTESY HYUNDAICARD/CAPITAL

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ing to the signature sultry-meets-minimalist look.

Were their house designers, says Wagemans
about his longstanding client. We do everything
for every location, from the interiors to the
covers of the CDs they publish. All-inclusiveness
is part of Wagemans trick. Not many architects
can create coherent, all-in-one solutions for their
clients. Were reinventing architecture, he says,
suddenly abandoning any modesty and becoming
very lively. I love to make beautiful interiors
with architectonic means. Im very grateful to
Rem Koolhaas for designing the Prada stores.
He opened the way for serious architects into
interior design.
Wagemans real forte is creating corporate
identities by way of three-dimensional advertising. His rm hasnt developed a style thats
immediately recognizable because Wagemans lets
the clients and their commercial interests rule.
We work for the clients brand, and we dont
want to be bigger than that brand, he says.
Just look at Starck. When he designs a hotel,
its inevitably a Starck hotel. The client has to
stay in the background. We dont work that way.
Of course, this doesnt make Concrete completely faceless either. Wagemans knows what
he likes, and thats noticeable in his projects.
It might not be apparent at rst, but Concrete
projects somehow carry his signature. Which
may be the key to their success: once youve seen
one project, its style becomes recognizable. You
just cant pinpoint exactly why.

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