Native Wood

Studio van der Zee creates hand-made, solid wood furniture in the Zillertal, in the heart of the Tyrolean Alps. Designer and craftsman Rutger van der Zee and his wife Mariella relocated to the valley in 2018 when their son was born. “I grew up here,” Mariella says, “and after living in London and Amsterdam together for a few years, we began to crave that connection with the mountains. After many discussions about moving to the countryside, once I became pregnant, the baby made the decision for us.”

The move presented a clean slate for Rutger, who was working in Amsterdam as a movement professional, training clients in fitness and mobility. “My practice was focused on moving in relationship with nature,” he says. “The complexity of the natural environment brings out certain patterns that are very healthy and intuitive: you may need to teach a person how to do a squat properly, but you don’t need to teach a person how to climb a tree – you just give them the opportunity and the natural patterns unfold.” Out of this movement practice, an interest in woodworking began to grow: “I was spending a lot of time applying parkour techniques to tree climbing. I started to notice the feel of the trees, the way the different woods responded to my body. I became fascinated by the material.” After attending a course in using hand tools, Rutger’s athletic movements translated themselves into the precise sweeps and incisions of woodworking. As he became more adept, he started sourcing local trees in Amsterdam to make furniture for his family and friends. “I realised I was spending more time in the workshop than I was working as a movement coach,” he says. Mariella laughs, “I would come home to find Rutger sat at his handmade shaving horse in the middle of our kitchen, working away.”

Rutger seized the move to Austria as a chance to pursue his woodworking professionally. He admits a certain amount of naivety helped with the decision. “If I had known the full extent of what was involved, I probably wouldn’t have attempted it,” he says. “To be a self-employed woodworker in Austria, you must have a master craftsman qualification from the woodworker’s guild. A friend in Amsterdam had warned me about this and I thought he was joking – the Netherlands hasn’t had a system like that since the Middle Ages.” Once he arrived in Austria, he began practising for the test, and in January 2020, was awarded the title of master craftsman. As Mariella explains, this was no mean feat: “It is normal for a woodworker to begin as an apprentice at the age of 16 and work for 10 years as a journeyman before embarking on the master’s test. I think people here must have thought Rutger was crazy to attempt it.”

The master qualification in place, Rutger and Mariella opened the Studio van der Zee workshop near their home outside Mayrhofen in early 2020. One of the first designs to emerge from the studio, in a small-batch production, was the Smile Seat: an elegant steam-bent panel supported by two hand-carved legs that are rounded at the base. The curved footprint lends a subtle rocking motion to the seat, allowing the user to gently lean forward while resting their knees on the floor, supporting a relaxed yet alert posture ideal for meditation. “I have been meditating for over a decade,” says Rutger. “The Smile Seat came about from my frustrated search for a sitting position where my legs wouldn’t fall asleep. I have good mobility, but any position I maintained would pinch my nerves in some way. From one prototype came another, and once I had settled on a design I was happy with, I realised others might find the solution useful too.”

The seats are produced in either ash or larch, and are packed in a nest of green hay cut by local farmers. “Our home is surrounded by five farms, so for half the summer, we enjoy the smell of freshly cut grass,” says Mariella. “People have told us that when they receive their seat and open the box, they are met with the scent of Alpine meadows. Some have even stuffed the grass in their pillows.”

A connection with the mountains is central to the van der Zees’ lives. “We go out hiking as much as we can,” says Mariella. “Life is just better outside, especially when you have a young child.” Around three hours’ hike away, up a steep path on a remote part of the mountain, the family have access to an Alpine hut built by Mariella’s third-great-grandfather. “He was the gamekeeper of the count who owned the land around here,” says Mariella. “As a thank you, the count gave him a small plot on which to build his wooden hut. It is incredibly quiet up there – no one except our family and a few local hunters use the path. Depending on the time of year, we gather wild porcini and chanterelle mushrooms on our way up and cook them on the log-burning stove for each meal.”

Like the grass sourced from the meadows nearby, Studio van der Zee uses exclusively native woods, and aims to source its lumber as locally as possible. “I am slowly getting the word out that I’m interested in local wood,” says Rutger. “My neighbour is planning to cut down a walnut this year – that tree has my name all over it.” One native variety is particularly prized: the zirbe, also called the Austrian stone pine or pinus cembra, can be found throughout the Alps, and is celebrated for its soft structure. “Above 1600 m in altitude, zirbe grows very slowly, and makes incredible wood,” says van der Zee. “It has a wonderful scent that has been proven to lower one’s heart rate when you are near it.” The wood is often the principal material used in the stube – the pine-clad living room of a traditional Alpine farmhouse – and is usually left untreated to allow its beneficial aroma to permeate the room. “Rutger made a bed for our son out of zirbe, and he sleeps beautifully in it,” says Mariella. “When you pick him up in the morning, he smells of the pinewood.”

Rutger recently finished a commission using zirbe as well. The client inherited the wood from her grandfather, a hunter in the Zillertal who felled the trees 25 years ago. Rutger was tasked with making the wood into a dining table for her new home. “It is very sentimental to her,” Mariella says. “Rutger delivered the table, and when I came by a little later the whole place was infused with the zirbe aroma. There is such a calm feeling to it – it’s like a different climate.” Rutger adds: “The most important thing to me is making furniture that lasts, to allow a relationship to grow with the owner. The personal connection you have with an object is the only thing that is truly invaluable. Nothing else matters in the end.”

studiovanderzee.com