If anything else the exhibition 'the eye opening sofa bed' reminded us of the originality of his oeuvre. And still Martin Visser (1922-2009) probably never would have regarded himself a Dutch designer. His ideas originated from a completely different mentality and ran quite opposite expressions of individualism, predominant in design today. Design classic BR2 symbolizes a shift in the taste of the Dutch middle class in the sixties. 

Visser started his career as a furniture purchaser for De Bijenkorf department store, where he assisted in curating a series of commercial sales expo's 'Ons Huis Ons Thuis' (our house/our home) in the late forties. Well versed in modern art he introduced Cobra into the stands and worked closely with Benno Premsela, Gerrit Rietveld and Constant. In 1954 newly appointed as a product designer for the Spectrum brand, Visser aimed to reverberate the Dutch living room by introducing meaningful functional furniture which radically broke with the decorative taste in modernism that was mainstream at the time. Like many of the generation of radical Modernists (Kho Liang Ie, Friso Kramer, Wim Crouwel, Jan des Bouvrie) Visser embraced modularity; rationalization of form enabling production in large numbers.