The qualities of cafés can tell us about the make-up of a community, a neighborhood’s ethnic composition and about the urban development of a city. Niklaus Mettler extracted the flavors of three different coffee blends he found around Amsterdam: Douwe Egberts, Turkish coffee, and a 3rd wave single origin coffee from Ethiopia. These flavors create a sort of taste and gentrification map of upmarket transition.
The perfume Filtered Beans is developed by Niklaus Mettler for Mediamatic’s sensuous game around city planning; Het Parfum. This interactive, social game explores the future of a much-debated area in Amsterdam’s city centre: the Navy Terrain. Thus with five different perfumers, five tailor-made fragrances give expression to various prospective visions of the city; one of which being fancy condos. Niklaus Mettler interprets this vision through the richness of coffee.
Why Fancy Condos?
The overall mission of the Navy Terrain is to transform it from being an off-limits military terrain, to an accessible public place of research, recreation, and housing. Innovation and sustainability are important factors for this transformation. Thus, housing would be built with sustainable-technology and possibly high-end to flourish the complex economically, culturally, and socially.
About Niklaus Mettler
Niklaus Mettler is the creator of an Amsterdam-based independent perfume line In'n'Out Fragrances. He works by collaborating with artists and perfumers from different fields. This had allowed him to design products that have ranged from fragrances to clothing to performances. He aims to experiment with perfumery through different contexts as a perfumer and a performer.
Het Parfum is a collaboration between Mediamatic, The Institute for Art and Olfaction, Play the City, and the five perfumers: Spyros Drosopoulos, Maki Ueda, Ricardo Moya, Niklaus Mettler, and Alessandro Gualtieri. Het Parfum is part of Uitmarkt 2018 that is held around the Oosterdok area which involves the Navy Terrain.
Open-source perfume formula for Filtered Beans
The formula for this perfume is open to all for you to recreate and build upon.
