One of Boym Studio’s most significant collaborations of the 1990s was with the German company Authentics, whose philosophy centered on finding new possibilities within inexpensive, everyday materials. Guided by principles including “the less you need, the more you know,” Authentics became known for products made from translucent polypropylene—objects whose thinness, texture, and luminous color elevated an otherwise ordinary plastic.

The Boyms first encountered Authentics at the 1994 Sears Style exhibition in Frankfurt. Impressed by the project, company founder Hansjerg Maier-Aichen invited them to develop a universal set of plastic containers under a deceptively simple brief: “Make them more than simple.” Rather than designing another fixed set of kitchen storage, the Boyms developed a modular system of toy-like containers that could be stacked, rearranged, and combined according to the user's needs.

The resulting Use It collection transformed the familiar logic of Tupperware into something more architectural and playful. Rectangular containers of different proportions shared a common modular system, allowing them to form larger compositions while their translucent material and saturated colors turned everyday storage into a constantly changing visual arrangement. The forms were deliberately simple; individuality emerged through how they were combined.

“USE IT” CONTAINERS:

Introduced in 1995, “Use It” was a series of polypropylene kitchen containers designed around a modular system rather than a predetermined set of uses. Their geometric forms could be assembled like building blocks, allowing each arrangement to change according to what was being stored and where it was being used.

Color became equally important in the design. The translucent polypropylene produced a luminous, almost glass-like effect on the humble material. The results were new compositions created by the stackiung of varying colors each time. Constantin Boym described the resulting forms as reminiscent of Wilhelm Wagenfeld's glass cubes or children's building blocks - bringing together the rational history of modern design with something intuitive and playful.

The collection proved commercially successful despite raising a few eyebrows within the design establishment. Three years after its introduction, “Use It” entered the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

MILAN FURNITURE FAIR 1998: FROM CONTAINER TO ARCHITECTURE

The modular logic of “Use It” eventually moved beyond the kitchen. For the 1998 Milan Furniture Fair, hundreds of the containers were assembled into walls and towers for an Authentics installation, transforming the inexpensive household product into an architectural building system.

Seen at this scale, the qualities already present in the individual objects became amplified: translucency created fields of light, repeated modules formed structure, and overlapping colors produced an irregular grid resembling a three-dimensional composition. The Boyms illustrated rather beautifully and humbly that a container designed to organize objects inside the home had effectively now become capable of organizing space itself.

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