Monuments and historic buildings

Grey office furniture for monuments, castles and old buildings.

A listed building, a castle, a canal house, a church or a former factory: the architecture already has a character. Boring Collection steps back. Grey desks, chairs and cabinets that meet every office standard and let the vaults, the brick, the timber and the daylight do the talking. The building gets the attention. The furniture gets the people.

Grey Boring desks and chairs between the concrete portals and brick walls of the Burgerweeshuis by Aldo van Eyck, a national monument

BPD in the Burgerweeshuis, Amsterdam, by Aldo van Eyck, 1960, a national monument. Interior EX interiors. Photo: Alexander van Berge and Roos Aldershoff

The coffered concrete ceiling and the sunken seating of the Burgerweeshuis, with grey Boring desks behind
Aldo van Eyck's domes and the sunken seating stayed. The desks keep quiet behind them.
Concrete columns and platform in the Burgerweeshuis, grey Boring desks and chairs
Columns, platforms and concrete frames: the building draws the lines, the furniture follows them.
An oak table with wooden chairs next to grey Boring workstations in the Burgerweeshuis
Where the building wants warmth, it gets oak. Where it wants calm, it gets grey. Photo: Alexander van Berge and Roos Aldershoff

Why it works

In a building with character, the furniture should know its place.

Most office furniture comes in white, black or a colour, and every one of them argues with an old building. Grey does not. RAL 7044 sits next to brick, oak, marble, plaster and concrete without competing, and it stays the same grey when the collection grows by a desk or a floor.

Desks, chairs, screens and cabinets stand free. Nothing has to be screwed into a listed wall or a historic floor, and everything leaves again without a trace. The collection meets the standards a modern workplace asks for, EN 1335 for the chairs, EN 527 for the desks, so a seventeenth century room can be a compliant office on Monday morning.

And because the furniture is affordable, the budget stays where it belongs in a monument: with the restoration, the lighting and the one beautiful piece in the boardroom.

Where it already happened

All projects
Boring Collection in De Ploeg, the weaving mill by Gerrit Rietveld in Bergeijk

De Ploeg, Bergeijk. Gerrit Rietveld, 1958. Interior Atelier van Asseldonk.

A Rietveld factory

De Ploeg, Bergeijk

The only industrial complex Gerrit Rietveld designed, in a park by Mien Ruys, now the workspace of exhibition builder Bruns. Atelier van Asseldonk put the collection on a yellow floor and let the roof do the talking.

Boring chairs in the offices of Musis Sacrum, Arnhem

Musis Sacrum, Arnhem, 1847. Renovation Koschuch. Photo: Bart van Hoek

A concert hall from 1847

Musis Sacrum, Arnhem

The offices of a concert venue that had grown into a patchwork since 1847 and was renovated by Koschuch. Oak, dark walls and a row of grey chairs that do not ask for applause.

Boring desks in a canal belt building in Amsterdam, Lightspeed

Lightspeed, Amsterdam. Space Encounters. Photo: Peter Tijhuis

A canal house and a cotton factory

Lightspeed, Amsterdam

A classical front house, a 1930 cotton factory with sawtooth roofs at the rear. The front rooms were restored, the factory became a hall, and the desks in between are grey.

Boring desks in the monumental sheds on the NDSM wharf, Roamler

Roamler, NDSM Amsterdam. Beyond Space. Photo: Lorenzo Zandri

Industrial heritage

Roamler, NDSM wharf

Four historic sheds with pointed glass roofs on the NDSM yard, the steel structure exposed, terracotta tiles on the floor and mature cacti in the courtyard. The desks disappear into it.

A Boring desk and chairs between the columns of a Milanese palazzo
A palazzo courtyard in Milan, 2019. Columns, cobbles and one grey desk.
Arched windows, red carpet and grey Boring desks at Mentha
Mentha, Amsterdam. Arched windows, red carpet, grey desks. Photo: Rian Knop
Boring desks in the former machine factory of Joolz, Amsterdam
Joolz, a former machine factory in Amsterdam Noord. BNA Building of the Year 2016. Photo: Peter Tijhuis

For the people in charge of an old building

Castles, town halls, monasteries, stations, schools, churches, country houses, factories.

If you run a monument that has to work as an office, send us the floor plan and the number of people. We send a quote with delivery and assembly, usually within two working days. Smaller orders ship from stock within two weeks. For a national monument we are happy to come and look first; we are architects, and we like old buildings more than we like furniture.

Request a quote See the projects

Kantoormeubilair voor monumenten, kastelen en klassieke gebouwen

Zoekt u kantoormeubilair voor een rijksmonument, een kasteel, een grachtenpand, een oude fabriek of een kerk die kantoor wordt? Boring Collection is daar voor gemaakt. Bureaus, bureaustoelen, kasten en akoestische schermen in één grijs, RAL 7044, dat naast baksteen, eiken, marmer en beton niets wil zeggen. Alles staat los, er hoeft niets in een monumentale muur of vloer geschroefd te worden, en alles voldoet aan de normen voor een moderne werkplek: EN 1335 voor de stoelen, EN 527 voor de bureaus. Betaalbaar, uit voorraad geleverd en op verzoek gemonteerd, in Nederland en België en daarbuiten. Het gebouw krijgt de aandacht. De meubels krijgen de mensen.

Boring fact

The Comfort Chair is one of the few office chairs in the world with grey castors. Most chairs have black ones, because nobody asked.