German designer Philipp Weber’s glassblowing pipe with valves like a trumpet won the New Talents Award at DMY Berlin last week (+ movie).
Philipp Weber studied at Design Academy Eindhoven, where he became intrigued by the glassblowing process and the possibility of altering the outcome by adapting the blowing pipe.
He added a system of valves to the pipe so that Belgian glassblower Christophe Genard could influence the inner shape of the glass by opening and closing different air streams.
A video documenting the use of the new instrument focuses on the sounds and rhythms created as the glass is formed by blowing and manipulating it using a series of tools.
“The relation between the glassblower and his tool is very important, since it bridges his connection to the material,” says Weber. “What if I change the tool? Does it change the material? And what if design doesn’t start at the product but at the tool?”
The DMY International Design Festival Berlin is one of the stops on our Dezeen and MINI World Tour, and we’ll be publishing more stories and videos from the event in the next few days.
Last week a glass pendant with a tiny brass chandelier inside it was presented at ICFF in New York, while Norwegian designers StokkeAustad and Andreas Engesvik created a series of blown-glass trees for Stockholm Design Week earlier this year – see all stories about glass.
Here are some more details about the project:
In ‘Creation of a strange Symphony’ Philipp Weber portrays the performance of a glassblower using a new and unusual tool.
Pivotal to this work was Weber’s desire to discover the world of a glassblower. In Belgium he was able to watch glassblower Christophe Genard working with the hot material. The designer questioned himself, ‘How can I inspire his interest to work with me?’.
Genard’s most important tool, the blowing pipe, caught Weber’s attention. In the past 2000 years only minor alterations have been made to the 1.5m long steel pipe, with no effect to the material. ‘What would happen to the glass if the function of this tool radically changed? How would Christophe adapt to a new pipe?’.
And so, by manipulating the pipe, he took influence on the inner shaping of the glass.
Simultaneously to this process, Weber also sensed a strong rhythm and musicality in the way Genard was working on the glass. The pipe as a tool for glass production, appeared to be like a musical instrument to him.
He could not resist the idea to translate the mechanism of a trumpet into an application for blowing glass.
Together with an engineer and the knowledge from preceding experiments for a new tool, he worked on an ‘instrument’ – an allegoric bond of craft and music – inspiring Genard to ‘improvise’ the glass, to start a dialogue with the material.
Playing the valves, Genard would shape the glass from inside, activating different air streams. The transformation of the pipe into an instrument provoked a performance of glass making. A short-movie, several glass objects and the instrument itself communicate this dance with the fire.
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by Philipp Weber appeared first on Dezeen.
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