His comfortable tubs made reading in the bath fashionable again. His bold couches, like giant velvet butter-dishes, brought humor and flair to the living room. When he suggested yellow interiors make the home look sunny, the whole of Holland got out their paint brushes.

"I'm a minimalist," says Holland's most revered interior designer, Jan des Bouvrie. "I believe in the school of 'form must follow function.' Le Corbusier, for example, is like God for me!" Yet des Bouvrie has shocked many people too with the blatant statements his interiors make.

When you walk through his showroom, Het Arsenaal, in one of the poshest areas of Holland, what you see is all but slight. Blood-red chairs jump out from white backdrops. Curly candelabras dangle over expanses of tables resembling Formica landing strips. Couches are so spacious you could sail in them to America. Synthetics mingle unabashedly with natural materials, rendering topsy turvy our usual standards of beauty.