Mid century executive writing desk by Theo Tempelman for Ap, 1960s

Theo Tempelman (Bindjei, October 27, 1931 – Wageningen, September 17, 2015) was an interior decorator and furniture designer. He has been a teacher at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and the Academy of Art and Industry in Enschede. His chair AP 40 was the first plastic chair from Dutch soil. Tempelman was born on Sumatra, in the then Dutch East Indies. During the Japanese occupation he was in a Japanese internment camp. After the war, he came to the Netherlands with his family and studied at the Academy of Art and Industry in Enschede. Immediately after his studies he started an office with Willem van der Mast-Spakler. He then entered into a collaboration with Nol Karstens. He mainly got to know the practice when he started working for designer Hein Salomonson. In 1974 Tempelman started his own agency, together with Hein Salomonson and Rik Egberts, for the larger assignments. The interior and exterior architecture was often supported by gardens designed by important landscape architects, such as Mien Ruys. His furniture designs are characterized by great ease of use, but also by beautiful lines and, even then, the omission of superfluous matters. This AP originals manufactured desk is a beautiful teak wooden copy, executive desk with beautiful lines and a large worktop. The desk is in good condition appropriate for age and use.