Maker record
ADO
ADO is a Dutch maker of wooden toys and children’s furniture, with toy production documented from the 1920s. Its wooden range included cars, dollhouse furniture, building blocks and games, made by tuberculosis patients as part of occupational therapy at the Berg en Bosch sanatorium. Under workshop leader and designer Ko Verzuu, ADO toys used clear colours and crisp forms influenced by De Stijl. Production began in Apeldoorn, moved with the sanatorium to Bilthoven in 1933, and transferred to a social-work facility in Zeist in 1962.
- Founded
- 1920
- Final year
- 1962
- Countries
- Netherlands
- Locations
- Arnhem, Netherlands · 1920
- Founders
- Ko Verzuu
The story of ADO
ADO wooden toys were made from the 1920s at the Berg en Bosch sanatorium in Apeldoorn. Tuberculosis patients produced them as part of occupational therapy intended to help prepare them for a return to ordinary life. CODA records that ADO initially stood for ‘arbeid door onvolwaardigen’ and that, from 1962, the name was recast as ‘Apart Doelmatig Onverwoestbaar’.
Workshop leader and designer Ko Verzuu shaped ADO’s toy designs from 1925 to 1955. The range included cars, dollhouse furniture, building blocks and games, with clear colours and forms influenced by De Stijl. In 1933, Berg en Bosch and ADO production moved from Apeldoorn to Bilthoven. Verzuu left in 1955, after which new designers continued developing the range.
In 1962 production transferred to a social-work facility in Zeist. The ADO brand history records production there for decades and describes the Apollo children’s-furniture series as a development of the 1980s. ADO’s current brand history presents the brand as continuing today.