The FRAME team pays tribute to their director and editor in chief Robert Thiemann upon his departure from the company he cofounded 26 years ago. 

As the story goes, ‘It all started in 1995, in a “Stube” in Hanover.’

Enter FRAME forefathers Robert Thiemann and Peter Huiberts. Both working for a Dutch magazine at the time – and in Germany for a trade fair – the young pair found themselves visualizing an ambitious publication that would give interior design the international limelight they felt it deserved. 

The Hanover concept, scrawled on beer mats, stuck. Back in Amsterdam, over a year passed, Thiemann (the editorial mind) and Huiberts (the business mind) found a small-scale publisher and FRAME magazine was born, in an attic on Nieuwe Spiegelstraat. The time was ripe, and the ideas were strong. Designers and architects everywhere started hearing about this extraordinarily well-curated publication. They got an itching to be part of it. The seeds of a legacy were planted. 

26 years of germination has seen FRAME flourish. Much has changed since those early days. An industry magazine turned into an independent publishing universe, and Thiemann, for a time, took the reins individually. What’s been built has been built collectively. But in almost three decades of existence, there’s always been that most attentive gardener – the one who created, and who gave others the foundation to create. Robert.

If there’s one thing that can be said about Robert, it’s that innovation is in his DNA. He has incredible sensitivity and intuition for the new, the beautiful and the meaningful – for the spaces with the potential to positively impact people and push culture forward. If they don’t have that quality, they don’t make the cut. And that philosophy is what makes FRAME, FRAME.

Luckily, it also has lasting power. Robert’s ideas are infectious. They’re often challenging. A synonym for challenging? Motivating. We’ve learned from him: don’t stop until you find what matters. He’s helped many talented people sharpen their own design lens. That doesn’t just go for those who have worked with him at FRAME, but the thousands of interior design professionals and lovers who have become part of its community. 

As a result, FRAME will live on.

In an interview with Robert for The Back Issue – a special guide commemorating 50 issues of FRAME, published in 2006 – he said: ‘The issue we’re working on is always my favourite.’ No looking back, only forward. That’s how you get the good stuff. You can see this ideology in our 155 magazines, our website, our books, our awards platform – in everything FRAME has become.

Robert, your team thanks you for 26 years of leadership, learning and laughs. You have forged a space that really matters. We will miss you. But we know you’re headed to the next great space, as always.