Mid-Century Shelving Unit by A. D. Dekker for Tomado, 1960s

While it is difficult to unearth reliable biographical information about a number of 20th century designers, few prove as great a challenge as A. D. Dekker. The designer is best known for a series of colorful, adjustable shelving units produced by Dutch brand Tomado. Confusingly, however, the designs are often attributed to either Adriaan Dekker, D. Dekker, or both! Unfortunately, our editors have been unable to resolve the conflicting information. We have, however, successfully established some concrete, key facts: Tomado (which was founded in 1923 and is an abbreviation of Togt Massa Artikelen Dordrecht) commissioned the design for Expo 58 in Brussels (1958), the first World’s Fair that took place after the Second World War, although some sources indicate the design goes back as far as 1953.

The colorful shelves of Dekker’s design, which call to mind the primary colors of Gerrit Rietveld’s Red & Blue Chair (1917), can be height-adjusted on the unit’s black plastic-coated metal racks. Satisfying the demand for small pieces that stored more, the mass-produced Tomado shelving system found a ready-made market, and a range of colors and configurations were produced. An advertisement from circa 1964 proclaims that it “Geeft u de Ruimte!” or “Gives you Space!”

Despite the dearth of biographical information available on the designer, his brightly-colored and easy-to-identify wall units—each shelf branded with Tomado’s mark—have been rediscovered in the 21st century and enjoy considerable popularity on the vintage market.

Dutch kitchenware company Tomado was founded as a small manufacturer of copper hooks in 1923 in Dordrecht, Holland by the Van der Togt brothers. In the years leading up to World War II, however, Tomado expanded its metalwork production to include functionalist cookware, knives, small appliances, and storage solutions. In the postwar era, Tomado’s modular, self-assembled, multifunctional wire shelves and racks became a near ubiquitous feature of Dutch homes.

Sometimes called “string furniture,” Tomado’s lacquered metal shelves have become highly collectible, especially the versions painted in the red-yellow-blue primary colors associated with the Dutch De Stijl movement. Another highly sought-after piece includes the SM05 Chair, which was produced as a collaboration between Pastoe and Tomado and designed by Dutch master Cees Braakman (1917-1995). This chair was released by Pastoe in 2011.

A Swiss kitchenware company called Metaltex absorbed Tomado in the 1980s, and the histories of many of Tomado’s designs remain in contention. Attribution for the design of Tomado’s now-iconic shelves, for example, is cited as A. D. Dekker, Adriaan Dekker, or Mr. Van Mieren.

Notably, the company’s headquarters building, known as Tomado House, still stands in Dordrecht as a monument to postwar modernism. Designed by Dutch architect Huig Maaskant in 1958 and completed in 1962, it was, at the time, the most modernist building in the Netherlands, characterized by a minimalist, cantilevered white-box form. The building today functions as an office building, recently renovated by local firm EMG Architecten.