Coffee Table by Kho Liang Li and Just Meijer for Kembo, 1970s

Outside of the Netherlands, Dutch designer Kho Liang Ie is best known for his work at Artifort, as well as his interiors for the Schipol airport in Amsterdam (1967). To the Dutch, however, he's considered one of the most significant talents of 20th-century design, and a prestigious design award was named in his honor.

Born in 1927 to Chinese parents in Magelang, Indonesia, Liang Ie moved to the Netherlands in 1949. Between 1950 and 1954, he studied interior and industrial design at Amsterdam's Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs, now part of the Rietveld Academy. After graduation, he took a position with the Stichting Goed Wonen, an organization dedicated to using good design to aid the postwar recovery efforts. In 1958, he was appointed aesthetic consultant and designer at Artifort. During his tenure there, he not only created a number of wildly succussful designs, but also was responsible for pursuading Artifort to commission designs from major international designers, like Pierre Paulin and Geoffrey Harcourt.

Standout designs for Artifort include the Lamp K46 (1957-59), Squareline collection (1958-61), 416 Seating (1961-66), Series 070 Sofa (1962-64), 720 Banquette Sofa (1966), 820/822 Table (1967), C662 and C684 Sofa (1968), Flower Tables (1968-70), and 656 Chair (1970s).

Liang Ie produced designs for other manufacturers as well, such as the J Series collection for Fristho (1956-60), Landereis and Lieshout Tables for 't Spectrum (1958-62), Terrace Chair for C. A. Ruigrok Industrie (1960), a credenza for Kempkes (1960), Copal Credenza for Fristho (1960-63), and tile collections for ceramics company Royal Mosa (1964-70).

At a time when Dutch design generally embraced an austere, industrial aesthetic, Liang Ie introduced what would later be called a "space age" style, anticipating the postmodern movement that would come to the fore in the 1970s and '80s. While his forms maintain a simplicity and rationality in line with modernism, his experimental approach to materials resulted in a warmth and freedom that was uniquely his own in postwar Netherlands.

Much too young, Kho Liang Ie died in January, 1975. His designs, however, live on the collections of many important Dutch museums, including Museum of Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), and Museum Catharijneconvent (Utrecht).

Dutch furniture manufacturer Kembo was established in the 1950s by the well-known designer W.H. Gispen (1890-1981). The name is a shortened version of the Dutch slogan,  'Kom Eerst Maar Bij Ons' meaning ‘Come see us first’. Upon resigning from his immensely successful eponymous furniture manufactory, Gispen , he co-founded the design manufacturing company Kembo in the early-1950s with Ru Meijer.

In the beginning, Kembo's products were designed by Gispen himself, but were produced by companies elsewhere. Commercial success, however, soon led to expansion and the construction of a factory in Veenendaal for the production of their office furniture. Characterized by a balance between shape and function, Gispen’s designs for Kembo included ergonomic steel framed pieces. One of the first pieces Gispen designed for Kembo was the Model 302 Armchair (1954), which won an award at Milan’s Triennale that same year. Other designers for Kembo included J.B. Meyer and Gerrit Veenendaal.

Sometime around 1960, Gispen left Kembo in order to pursue his interests in architecture, and at the age of seventy-nine he began drawing lessons at the Royal Academy in The Hague. Not long after Gispen's departure, Meijer left the firm as well, leaving Kembo to his three sons Sjoerd, Gelder, and Just Meijer who continued to run the company, introducing office furniture in the 1990s. Kembo was one of the first producers to offer laminated seating and injection molded plastic furniture in an office setting. Designs from this time included the Thema Conference Chair (1995), and the office program Plato (1998) both designed by NPK Industrial Design; the office program Lost Boys, (2003, Dutch Design Prize) by Khodi Feiz, which was accepted into the permanent collection of the Het Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 2004. Other contemporary designers include Wolfgang Deisig, Daniël Figuroa, Gerard Geytenbeek, and Erik Munnikhof.

In 2014, Amsterdam-based furniture label Lensvelt (est. 1962) acquired Kembo and included seven Gispen classics, including chairs 101, 103, 201, 202, 205, and the 301 Easy Chair (all 1950s), in the collection entitled WH Gispen from Kembo by Lensvelt ... with love.