Nagasaki, Japan
Dutch artist Harald Vlugt

Palace Huis Ten Bosch Furnishings

The project Après Nous le Deluge was opened in November 1995 in the replica of the Palace Huis Ten Bosch (the official residence of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands) in Nagasaki, Japan.
This project has been set up in the 'Oranje Zaal', and consists of 1200 metres of wall and ceiling murals painted by the Dutch painter Rob Scholte and of three dimensional furnishings which Scholte introduced Harald Vlugt to design and produce.
With the approval of Simon Levie, former director of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, whose activities include adviser to Huis Ten Bosch City, Vlugt was recommended for the commission.
After visiting the Nagasaki Palace Huis ten Bosch in July 1992 Vlugt began designing the ornaments, to correspond in the style with Scholte's murals, resulting in a 'Gesamtkunst- werk'. Both the murals and objects have been created largely by 'recycling' images from historical artworks which have been combined in a way similar to collage.
To produce his creations, Harald Vlugt worked in close cooperation with Dutch plaster and bronze-casting companies that are still working with traditional techniques. The bench foot elements, the cordon posts in the form of Dutch bicycle pumps, the two different styles of door handles, and the hinges are made of solid bronze.

Bicycle pump
The foot elements of the benches, which are upholstered in blue velvet imported from Switzerland, are in the form of a double sphinx. The cordon posts in the form of traditional Dutch bicycle pumps have a dual significance. Apart from the obvious reference to the prevalence of cycling in Holland, Vlugt sees the pump as an allusion to the centuries-long labour of reclaiming land from the sea by pumping the polders dry. The rope linking the pumps to form a cordon creates a wavy blue line along the perimeter of the 'Oranje Zaal'. The hinges are elongated along their axes, with a Dutch paint brush above and a Japanese calligraphy brush below.
The chandeliers, the screens for the air-conditioning outlets and the door mechanisms are made of various materials: aluminium; iron; plaster of Paris; casting-resin; wood; and so forth, all given a final finish of bronze leaf, to which a patina has been applied to create the illusion of age. Bronze-leaf is a material that was used extensively in the 17th century.
Various materials have been imported from Belgium, the Czech Republic and Italy.
The chandeliers are the joint conception of painter Rob Scholte and sculptor Harald Vlugt. Vlugt produced the four chandelier from sixteen official Dutch traffic lights. On the underside of each chandelier is a cast of a lion's head holding a glass diamond in its mouth. The chandeliers have also been given a finish of patinated bronze-leaf. The painted image of the traffic light can be found on the mural located near the top of the dome. 





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