Mark Eckert, the new head of the company bulthaup, the grandson of the famous founder of the company Martin Bulthaup, told the magazine SALON – interior about four main things to be in the kitchen, the philosophy of wabi-sabi and love for Russia
Passing the gallery Text and photo: Nina Farizova
Magazine: (185) 2013
You started to manage the company quite recently. Do you plan to change something?
- I will answer this way. Russians have a saying: “New is well forgotten old”. If you know your company, you will not drastically change anything. I will try to continue the tradition. In Germany, we say that the kitchen is the heart of the house. This is the center of family communication, to be more precise. In ancient times, people also gathered around the fire. And therefore, I believe that there are four mandatory components that are necessary in any kitchen: fire, water, places for communication and storage systems.
SALON: Now there are kitchens with touch controls. Do you welcome these innovations?
- Our company never let out and will not let out kitchens with electronics. I believe that people in the kitchen should work with their hands. It is then that it will be warm in the house. This year at the showroom in Milan, we showed how to combine an unusual model from the various elements of our kitchens. We put the islands of different levels: a separate island - a plate, the second - a sink, the third - a storage system. And all these multi-level cubes are also seats. It turned out creatively. We supplemented the space with a library of 200 cookbooks, in Russia, we bought old cutting boards on the market, and put a floorboard of 300 years old Russian larch on the floor. Such a symbiosis of high-tech cuisine, vintage accessories and household items, in my opinion, is the ideal kitchen of the 21st century. The Japanese call this approach wabi-sabi, that is, a transcendental exit from the material world to a simpler life.
S: What do you do in your free time?
- I dedicate it entirely to my son Ben, he recently turned two years old.
S: Do you like sports?
- I love football, but not to play, but to watch. By nature I am not an athlete.
S: And what is the kitchen at home?
- At home I have a kitchen of b3 of our company, but I also love b2 very much. I do not know how to cook. I make good coffee. But the kitchen is my second home. In the morning I immediately go there, read newspapers and talk with my family.
