By Verne Maree
Issue 91 - February 2010

If there’s no such thing as “a Blum kitchen”, why does everyone want one?

Before I met Marcus Holz, I assumed that Blum sold kitchens, and arriving at its stunning new showroom – a series of spaces featuring swish concept kitchens filled with the aroma of fresh coffee – did nothing to correct my mistake.

In fact, Blum is a hardware manufacturer. It makes the components of kitchen cupboards and drawers, hinges, locks, sliding and opening mechanisms. “If you take away all the visible parts of a kitchen,” explains Marcus, “what is left is the stuff we make.” Not inherently sexy, he agrees; it has taken a lot of ingeniously innovative marketing to make it so.

The brand is well-known in Europe, but mainly to the kitchen-building industry. What Marcus has done with Blum in Singapore – marketing it directly to the homeowner – is unprecedented.

“Southeast Asia’s kitchen market is totally different from that of Europe,” he says. “Instead of large companies selling a range of kitchens, you find many smaller designers building individual kitchens for individual clients. Blum is a high-end product, and back in 2001 we were selling to what was a low-end market.

“Until then, a kitchen was regarded in Singapore as no more than a necessity, so style and quality were unimportant. The cheaper, the better: just close the door and let the maid get on with the cooking. That is changing, partly due to the boom in increasingly smaller condos and the move to open-plan design, which means that the kitchen has to look good.

“We know we have a great product, and the industry knows what Blum is, but the homeowner may not.”

He shows me a well-thumbed 2001 Blum brochure.

“In 2001, we visited every kitchen showroom in Singapore with this book, and succeeded in getting many of them to display our hardware. Some agreed to change their existing hardware to ours; others displayed our components separately. This innovative approach – promoting each other – was something very new in Asia. Our goal was for the homeowner to tell the designer: ‘I want a Blum kitchen,’ despite it costing a bit more.”

Around 2004, the business really took off, he says, and Blum became the market standard.

“Soon, it made sense to establish our own showroom, a place where we could invite homeowners to see, touch and experience the product and show them what Blum can do. We also show Fisher & Paykel products, and Nespresso coffee-makers – would you like a cappuccino?”

Of course I would. And an hour later, once I’ve done the grand showroom tour, I’m not only convinced of the efficacy of this approach but I want my own Blum kitchen. In fact, I need my own Blum kitchen.

The Orchard apartment that Roy and I bought in 2005 had been renovated by its previous owners eight years before that. Though they splashed out on marble, wooden floors and expensive lighting, they skimped on the kitchen by using cheap sinks and cooking appliances, and nasty countertops that were soon disgracefully warped by sun and water damage.   

When I tell Marcus that we decided to retain the still-sound cherry-wood cupboards, but fitted new granite tops, sinks and appliances, he shakes his head. “The cupboards are the least expensive part of the kitchen, and by investing just a few thousand you could have had a much better kitchen, one designed to suit your needs exactly.”

The Grand Tour
The entrance lobby features a concept kitchen designed for a small space, with running water, a working oven, hob, fridge and dishwasher.

I like Blum’s “dynamic space” theory, in terms of which kitchens are colour-coded into five essential areas: preparation, cleaning, cooking and baking, storage of consumables (perishables in the fridge; dry foods in the pantry) and storage of glassware, crockery and so on. Marcus shows me how, with the use of plenty of shallow drawers and specialist pullout drawers such as a U-shaped number under the sink and one under the hob for pots and pans with separate slots for their lids, this small kitchen manages to define each of these essential areas.

“Most importantly,” he points out, “the drawer comes out to you, so there’s no need to crawl into cupboards to find stuff.”

Set into the showroom walls are samples of Tandembox Intivo, Blum’s drawer system. Exterior panels in different colours and materials – including leather, glass, stone and marble – let you see how they will look together. Right now, glass dividers are very popular, as are side-railings. There are standard drawers, high-fronted pullouts, and lift-up systems for upper cabinets, with mechanisms that work like a dream. One flick and they close silently and gently on their own.

The next room is 60 square metres – the size of a small apartment – devoted to showcasing the latest technology. A large kitchen area sports upper cabinets with a one-touch, fully electronic opening mechanism, and zooty handle-less doors. Other areas show that Blum components can also be used to excellent effect in the living room, the bedroom and the bathroom – anywhere that you might need cabinets.

Test-drive Your Kitchen
In this dedicated area of the showroom, you can design your own kitchen with the help of a library of full-scale cabinets and other units. They’re colour-coded according to the five functional zones, and fitted with wheels so you can move them around effortlessly.

“A kitchen is generally a 10-year investment,” says Marcus, “and as a homeowner, you’re a layman. You don’t know what you need, and you’ll almost certainly underestimate how much storage space you’ll require.   

“The first test-drive kitchen has proven very successful in Europe, and ours is only the second one in the world. Though it officially launched only in January, we have already had a number of architects and designers come in to check the workability of their designs. Interestingly, after testing his or her plan, every one of them has made an adjustment to it.”

I can see that it’s not going to be difficult to convince Roy that we need “a Blum kitchen”. All I have to do is take him to the showroom and let him play there for an hour or two.


The Blum showroom is at #02-00 Ubi Biz-Hub,
150 Ubi Avenue 4. Call +65 6457 1760.