Design Map · Eindhoven
A Room for Echoes
Graduation project by Donald Guénard at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
Growing up overlooking Paris’s Père Lachaise cemetery, Donald Guenard developed a fascination with nineteenth-century funerary architecture. After moving away, he began questioning why people build tombs and how their design expresses memory, admiration, social status and permanence. Their monumental scale, vertical lines and neoclassical forms reveal a desire to assert power over time and resist disappearance.
These observations drive 'A Room for Echoes', a collection of steel furniture for solitary study and reflection. A bookcase, rotating chair and monumental desk reinterpret obelisks, steles and tombstones through sharp silhouettes and a deep black finish reminiscent of polished marble. Their imposing proportions humble the user, while integrated candle holders and austere lines create an atmosphere of silence rather than comfort. By bringing the symbolic power of cemeteries into the home, the furniture becomes a personal shrine, reflecting both the desire to leave a lasting trace and human vulnerability in the face of time.