As a child, Düsseldorf, Germany-born designer Maximilian Eicke always predicted that, like his art dealer parents, his future would revolve around antiques. “As I got older, I found that my tastes skipped a few centuries ahead,” he reflects. “While admiring the past, I felt I also needed to understand and be part of where the future of the design world would go.”
By applying his respect for material integrity “to something that was more of the moment,” he says he forged a minimalist-meets-timeless style that pervades his tabletop and furniture collections under the Max ID NY umbrella, the company he started almost 12 years ago when he was only 20 years old.
Consider the handblown Ghost glasses he spent two years conceptualizing to accommodate his “need for straight lines and sharp edges. This does not come naturally in the glassblowing process, where organic shapes reign supreme,” he points out. The results are highballs and tumblers, tinted in such hues as an uplifting grassy green or a hypnotic dark amber, and flaunting faceted designs that reference precious stones.
The handblown glass Ghost tumbler and Twist vase in Leopard
Just as the vessels were created as part of Eicke’s ambitions to build as much as possible from scratch for his Bali compound, Dukuh Haus, his foray into outdoor furniture reflects his time darting between the Indonesian island and the Hamptons in New York. Although attractive outdoor furniture existed on the market, “it was specifically designed to be, look, and feel like outdoor furniture,” he says, and he wanted to transform that notion by making “aesthetic furniture that functions outdoors, but can also be used indoors without anyone being the wiser.” One versatile example is the solid teak, angular Zoo dining chair.
Currently, Eicke is developing the Soft collection, his new upholstered furniture series, which also grew out of the Bali home and a self-imposed directive to design pieces “that would be comfortable, but also match the strong geometry of the architecture of the building they would be set in.” He’s spending ample time in Philadelphia, too, where his new showroom is found within Showrooms 2220. “[When I saw] the building and the rooms we occupy, it was love at first sight,” he says. “The ceiling height, the number of windows, and all their beautiful, small industrial details.”
The Dukuh Haus bedroom features the upholstered Slant club chair and other prototypes
This article originally appeared in HD’s 2021 Product Marketplace issue.
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