In 2005 Valentin came to Maastricht to study product design at the Maastricht Institute of Arts. He never left the city, launching Studio Valentin Loellmann right after graduation. After his first studio at Volksplein was rebuilt once again in 2015, Valentin wanted to express himself differently than just through furniture. He had this dream to create a garden, to build something that would radiate energy without requiring explanation. He wanted to give back a reflection of what his work had given him over the past years. In 2019, this feeling materialised in the form of this former gas factory that had stood vacant for nearly fifty years. The factory could have been any building. What mattered was the opportunity to begin again, to fill an empty canvas with meaning.

"With this work - the factory - I wanted to create a place larger than myself, one that might eventually outlive me. A place that would give me enough room and freedom to build my own little world and keep my process singular, yet from the beginning it was never meant solely for myself. It was intended as something that remains: a space that can one day be shared to inspire, and that perhaps allows me to no longer feel alone with my work. To me, the factory is a work, like a table or a chair - simply in another format. Yet unlike pieces of furniture, it cannot be sold. It exists. It persists. Its restoration was made possible solely through the continued success of my furniture. In this sense, the two are inseparable: the factory finances the work, and the work derives its meaning and energy from the factory. It is both motor and destination. Everything forms a cycle.

For me, the factory is another attempt to build the kind of place I once wished had existed for myself, and for it to function within a system I have always struggled to fit into. I want to make it accessible beyond me, beyond my lifetime. A space for exchange, for energy, for others who might, like me, feel slightly misplaced within given structures. Ideally, the factory will provide a space for others to work and interact with this energy here. That is when we are back at the beginning - because that is exactly what I received when I came here. For me, this energy is not tied to me. I have certainly shaped it, but it was already here. Everyone who came in, all those pieces crafted here that are now scattered all over the world, all of that forms this space."