Interview with the founder of the brand STUDIO BECKER, which in the world of kitchens is synonymous with the highest quality, exclusivity and genuine German thoroughness

Passing the gallery

Materials prepared: Nikolay Fedyanin

Magazine: N11 (89) 2004

STUDIO BECKER is associated with the name of truck stokers, which during the Great Patriotic War were supplied to the USSR by the Americans. In the world of kitchens, STUDIO BECKER is synonymous with the highest quality, exclusivity and genuine German thoroughness. However, the name also appeared in the USA: the founder of the brand Роар Вернес (Roar Vaernes) has shortened the name of the BECKERMANN factory to BECKER, which is more understandable to the Americans, and to emphasize that the design of these kitchens is being developed by itself, added the word STUDIOSALON: Tell us how it turned out that you, a Norwegian by nationality, live in San Francisco, and produce kitchens in Germany? - I left Norway for America because I have too high taxes in my homeland. I make kitchens in Germany because I never compromise on quality issues. When I wanted to make a line of traditional cuisines in the English style, I turned to the English masters, but the quality did not suit me. I will give a simple example. I have two cars: Land Rover and Mercedes. When I go on a long journey, I leave the Land Rover in the garage: it always breaks something.S: What is most important for you in kitchens? - The concept of STUDIO BECKER is to create exclusive kitchens. We are one of the few companies that produce kitchens using cabinet technology. Usually, the back wall of kitchen cabinets is made of hardboard or plywood, and there is nothing above the wooden countertops above the worktop. STUDIO BECKER makes all six sides of the wardrobe solid birch, so the drawers will never be re-arranged.S: I looked at your kitchen, Milano, trimmed with a bird's eye, and was surprised. Where did you get such an unusual, "concentrated" veneer? - We do it ourselves. Natural maple wood eyes are uneven. We buy the veneer, and then the craftsmen of the factory manually select the pieces to achieve this effect of "concentration". For example, look at what we do with wenge (Roar takes a strip of six pieces of wood in his hand. - S). The natural color of wenge is slightly yellowish. Usually this wood is simply painted and varnished. However, after five or six years, yellow streaks begin to appear through the black surface. To prevent this from happening, we bleach the wood twice, then paint it, let it dry and paint it again so that the color is really evenly distributed.S: Your modern design kitchens (collection M) are literally crammed with various unusual technological details. You specifically tried to introduce as many new products? - In fact, I believe that technology should be invisible. Here, for example, you paid attention to the "bird's eye" finish, and someone just looks and says "beautiful finish." The technological advantages of the kitchen should not be evident. These are very subtle nuances. For example, many manufacturers use pneumatic closers. I prefer silicone, because silicone has a resource of about 150 thousand cycles, and pneumatic - almost two times less. As I already said, technology should not declare itself. You probably know that rounded surfaces are much more difficult to varnish than flat ones, because in this case the varnish falls unevenly. We solved this problem: we developed special technologies that no one else has. But when you look at the doors of the Milano kitchen, you are hardly wondering how they managed to so smoothly cover this surface. Recently, I began to think about the fact that the kitchen drawers are poorly lit. Luminous LED bulbs in the bell-door model Milano play more decorative role. Now we need to figure out how to embed them inside the cabinets. In design it is always like this: once you solve one problem, two new ones immediately appear.