A chat with Caroline Kruit
She set up a successful magazine on architecture and building technology, graduated as a structural engineer and journalist, teaches at the Academy of Architecture in Arnhem and is the ambitious link between Metadecor and the international world of architecture. Caroline Kruit combines many of her passions in her position as International Business Developer at Metadecor.
Her career in architecture and building began in Delft, where Caroline studied structural engineering. ‘After my graduation, I didn't want to first gain five years of experience at an engineering firm and do calculations I didn't feel like doing, before being able to taking on the nicer assignments’, she says. She saw the vacancy for technical editor at a large publishing firm, applied and was hired.
There you are, as a techie writing copy. Caroline started an evening course in journalism ‘to get a grip on writing’, she explains. Smiling: ‘As an engineer, you want to know what you are doing’. A year later, Caroline was editor-in-chief at the publishing house for magazines on architecture, building and the refurbishment of buildings.
Caroline was visiting the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure in Dubai (UAE) in January 2023
Own magazine
In 2005, she set up her own magazine DAX: a magazine for and about architects and architecture, with a different architect as editor-in-chief for each edition. At the same time, she gave workshops to marketers in architecture. ‘One of the participants was Roelof van der Toorn (owner of Metadecor, ed.).’
Metadecor was still in its early days, but Caroline and Roelof kept in touch all these years. "I've always found it fascinating to see how an architectural idea gets translated to a building," says Caroline. "And then learn how to make high-quality facades while being mindful and innovative in your field of work."
Sustainability
The marriage of architecture and building engineering is one of the two themes central to Caroline's career. The second theme is sustainability, a subject she has been writing about and researching since her graduation. That passion has everything to do with her upbringing. ‘I come from a family of arborists and grew up amidst trees, plants and flowers. In the mid-1980s, the Dutch government – a main client of our family business - decided to stop planting trees. At the same time, the first images of burning rainforests were shown on television. I remember watching my father getting very emotional over these images. Therefore, I grew up with environmental awareness and the awareness of the makeability and fragility of things.’
Caroline wants to take the quality and makeability of Metadecor's facades across borders, to places where there is a market for the products - and where the sun shines more brightly than it does in The Netherlands. Beautiful, sun-resistant facades with unique patterns in MD Formatura or MD Designperforation, the tactile solutions with MD Shapes or the energy-producing facades with MD Fasolar: it is a pleasure to introduce these products to a new market. ‘I am a big fan of energy-efficient buildings. I am in love with good architecture. In this international playing field, I want to present and sell beautiful, environmentally conscious facades.’ Presenting the products and expertises of Metadecor, there is still a world to conquer.
Smart Cities trade mission in January 2023
Turning her life around
After a decades-long career of publishing, consulting and event management, Caroline felt it was time to do something different. That ‘different' translated to Metadecor, where she joined mid-2022. ‘I wanted to reinvent myself in a challenging position. At Metadecor, I have an international commercial position where I get to learn about new cultures and build a new network. At the moment, I mainly do business in the Middle East. So suddenly, you find yourself in the desert in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, or at a trade fair in Dubai.’
In the Middle East, Caroline has been talking to parties and governmental representatives who develop buildings there. Buildings to which Metadecor, according to Caroline, can make a valuable contribution. ‘I hope that in a few years' time I will walk into our assembly hall in Kampen and see projects ready for shipment to the other side of the world. Just because I had a chat at a trade fair in Dubai.’
