Cracking work: Breaking new ground in glassmaking

25 : 11 : 2013 Design : Future Primitive : Rough

Miami – Designer Ilkka Suppanen’s delicate glass structures look as if they might break with one touch because his vessels are created from broken glass that has been re-assembled using an innovative melting technique.

For the Éclat series of vessels, Suppanen melted Murano glass, let it cool, broke it with a hammer and then remelted the glass in such a way that the cracks formed a pattern, creating uniquely textured containers.

‘For me it is interesting philosophically to be able to break something and then re-unite it and build it again,’ Suppanen tells Disegno Daily. ‘It reminds me of water and ice. You see ice melting and then it freezes again and you get this lace-like pattern.’

Designers are turning to the rough and primitive aesthetic of nature to inspire designs, which we identified as the Future Primitive design direction at the London Design Festival 2013.

Suppanen will be showing Éclat as part of Parisian Galerie Maria Wettergren’s booth at Design Miami/. Look out for more LS:N Global coverage of the international art show in December.

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