TILBURG.- This autumn, TextielMuseum opens the exhibition Hella Jongerius – Smart hands, offering a unique insight into the design process and textile archive of one of the Netherlands’ most influential designers. The exhibition follows Jongerius’ generous donation of her textile design archive to the museum. The archive comprises more than 4,000 sketches, models and material samples. In the exhibition, a selection from the archive is presented alongside realised textile products and objects. This reveals how Hella Jongerius’ work comes into being: the focus is not only on the final result, but also on the research, experimentation and making process behind it.

Jongerius gained international recognition through designs for companies including IKEA, KLM, Vitra and Maharam. Her work is held in the collections of museums including MoMA in New York, the V&A Museum in London and Centre Pompidou in Paris. Textiles have been a common thread throughout her career of more than thirty years. Through her work, Jongerius explores the interplay between craft and industry, colour, material, technique and innovation – and meticulously documents this process.

An archive that keeps moving

This is precisely what makes her textile archive so remarkable. It is not a static archive, but a working one that Jongerius herself continually returns to: with each new project, she looks back at previous research, which can become the starting point for other designs years later.

“The archive contains so many signatures, loose ends, patterns, techniques and materials. All you have to do is combine one box with another and you have an entirely new design. There are so many possibilities for new work.” – Hella Jongerius





Two years ago, Jongerius donated her extensive textile design archive to TextielMuseum. At the time, the museum already held more than forty textile objects by Jongerius in its collection. With the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, in part thanks to its Titus Fund, the museum also acquired eleven important objects from her textile oeuvre: from an early work such as the Knitted Lamp to the more recent Space Amulets. The donated archive comprises 160 boxes containing thousands of material experiments and textile samples collected by Jongeriuslab throughout her career. In a sense, this gives TextielMuseum a blueprint of Jongerius’ textile work and working methods.

From material experiment to realised design

Through a selection of sketches, samples, prototypes and realised designs, visitors gain insight into how Jongerius thinks and works. In Smart hands, the archive is not simply presented chronologically. Work from different periods is connected through themes such as the dynamic archive, colour, craft and industry. This reveals connections between ideas, research and designs that are sometimes separated by many years.

An enormous cross-shaped cabinet forms the basis of the exhibition design. This metres-long, colourful open structure connects not only the different exhibition spaces, but also the various themes. The cabinet is filled with partially opened archive boxes, each labelled by hand. Inside are material studies and samples, displayed alongside the corresponding realised objects.

The presentation includes fabrics Jongerius developed for the American textile company Maharam, together with the corresponding weaving samples. Also on display is work she created for the Spanish brand Camper, IKEA and the UN Lounge in New York. In addition, the exhibition presents textile samples and prototypes for KLM’s business-class interiors, preliminary studies for textile installations, and experiments with colour and three-dimensional weaving.

“If you only look at the final object, you see just part of the story. In the textile archive, we follow the many steps that precede it, the expertise and the hands involved in its creation, with Jongerius as the passionate ‘conductor’ and mastermind.” – Suzan Rüsseler, curator, TextielMuseum

International recognition

The significance of Jongerius’ oeuvre and working methods is also recognised internationally. In 2024, Paola Antonelli, influential design curator at MoMA in New York, spoke to Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant about Dutch design and her particular appreciation of Jongerius:

“Nowhere is design used so intelligently. The designer who stands head and shoulders above the rest is Hella Jongerius. She was the first to emphasise the relevance of craft to production. She was the first to conduct in-depth research into the origins of materials and production techniques. […] Ultimately, she applies all that knowledge and those ideas very concretely in enduring objects.” – Paola Antonelli, design curator, MoMA

With Smart hands, TextielMuseum makes this way of working visible to the public.





Thinking with your hands

For three decades, Jongeriuslab has explored how craft techniques and industrial production can reinforce one another. The title Smart hands refers to Jongerius’ way of working, in which conceptual thinking goes hand in hand with experimentation, material research and physical making. Imperfections, irregularities and visible traces of the making process are not concealed but can instead give a design a human dimension. This investigative and physical approach to making is also known as her ‘dirty hands’ method.

A source of inspiration

As a leading figure in Dutch design, Jongerius has shared her knowledge with a new generation of designers for decades, actively involving them in her research. This exchange of knowledge and the cross-pollination that results from it form an important part of her practice and are also given a place in Smart hands.

The exhibition therefore includes work by four designers who, at different stages in their careers, were part of the Jongeriuslab design team: Meyers + Fügmann, Adrianus Kundert and Jos Klarenbeek. Each has their own specialism, but all share a professional interest in textiles and, in particular, the possibilities of weaving. The combination of material research, craft and the intelligent application of technology demonstrates how their experience at Jongeriuslab continues to inform their own practices.

“What I know, what I can do and what I have done, I pass on by always giving young people the opportunity to work in the studio, thereby contributing to a new generation of designers.” – Hella Jongerius

Hella Jongerius

Hella Jongerius (1963) founded Jongeriuslab in 1993 and is one of the most internationally influential Dutch designers. Her work moves between design, craft and industry and is characterised by in-depth research into materials, colour, production techniques and the relationship between people and objects.

Jongerius has received numerous awards for her work, including the Rotterdam Design Prize (2003), Sanoma Oeuvre Award (2008), Sikkens Prize (2017), BNO Piet Zwart Award (2021) and DesignEuropa Lifetime Achievement Award (2025). In 2023, the British Royal Society of Arts named her an Honorary Royal Designer for Industry. Her work is held in collections including MoMA (New York), Vitra Design Museum (Weil am Rhein), V&A Museum (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.