Haagse School Dutch Art Deco side or serving table by Wouda for Pander, 1920s

This table was designed to serve as a tea table or a serving table and has sliding trays at both sides. With the trays inside it looks like a sideboard and it is very suitable as a display table for art or books, or for instance as accent piece in an entrance hallway. Some pictures added to show how this could look.

It’s an interesting looking design, timeless and modernist. Also an investment piece as Wouda furniture is getting more desirable as well as rare.

The table is in good condition with small signs of the time. It has been cautiously cleaned. It is sturdy and very stable.

Hendrik Wouda (1885 – 1946) was a Dutch architect, interior designer and furniture designer.
According to Wouda, house interior is an inseparable part of architecture. His furniture is characterized by cubist shapes and clean lines. Wouda designed ‘strict’ rationalistic furniture, always with a personal signature. The shape of the legs in his chairs and tables is one of them. Subtle use of bright colour is another.
The style of this table is called Haagse School, a famous dutch style that manisfested itself in The Hague during the Interbellum. It was meant to represent a luxurious and modern design style. It reflected the modernist architecture style of the time. Important influences for Wouda were the design ideas of Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as Berlage (who he worked for) and the ideas of avant-garde movement ”De Stijl”. All this resulted in modern commercial designs, targeting the upper class clientele.

Wouda was head of (modern) design at the famous furniture firm H. Pander en Zn. His students included Cor Alons and J. Brunott.

Biography

After training at the Academy of Visual Arts and Technical Sciences in Rotterdam and the Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague, Wouda worked from 1910 to 1912 at the Amsterdam office of architect H.P. Berlage, but he didn’t enjoy it very much: “My ears were ringing with those heavy arguments and I was caught in obligatory principles” (freely translated).
From 1912 – 1914 he worked in Munich worked for the Pössenbacher Werkstätte for architect Eduard Pfeiffer. There he became acquainted with a much more luxurious and, above all, more commercial modernism than Berlage’s strict, principled design. In 1917 he started working for Pander.