Hasta La Ideas

American designer Louie Rigano has created a range of teapots that combines mass-produced wooden handles and lids with individual hand-thrown bodies.

The body of the pot is made of unglazed clay and each one will be unique.

The lid of the vessel also forms a cup.

Rigano designed the teapot while living in Japan for a year.

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Here are some more details from the designer:

“A series of teapots questioning perfection as an end-goal and exploring the relationships between textures and between mass-production and handmade.

The parts of the teapot that one comes into contact with are streamlined, smooth, and easily mass-produced. The body, however, is handmade and wheel-thrown, unglazed and rough. The unglazed ceramic body is easily capable of becoming well-seasoned after repeated use; which is a prized quality found in old teapots.

The wooden fixtures, which get handled, are able to develop a richly aged surface and patina after repeated use.

The lids, which also serve as teacups, and the handles, both made of oak, are a standard size and shape and can be produced in multiples in industry with ease. The ceramic body is thrown by a potter who simply must make the rim and handle plug the same standard size.

Besides these two requirements, the potter has complete artistic freedom to create the teapot in any shape or dimension.”

I’m originally from New Jersey, though I have been awarded a Fulbright grant and I am currently studying and travelling in Japan for a year.

My focus is on traditional Japanese design philosophy and aesthetics, and their role in modern design and culture. During the course of the year I am designing and fabricating objects that will not only pay homage to Japan’s history, but integrate and rework the precepts of these traditional aesthetics into products designed for mass production in the current age.

This I hope will provide an alternative point of view to the heavily globalized design world. My work deals with pared down ideals. I seek a thoughtful and occasionally humorous meditation on contemporary notions of luxury, utility, and cultural values, conveyed by the most direct and simple means.

See also:

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Tea pot by Lee West for Eno	Tea pot by Designerette	Tea pot by Patrick Frey

Dutch designer Hella Jongerius presents 300 porcelain vases coloured with layers of mineral and chemical glazes at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

Produced in collaboration with porcelain brand Royal Tichelaar Makkum, the series uses historical recipes for glazes using materials like copper, cobalt, cadmium and iron, layered up with modern chemical glazes.

Update: forty of the vases were damaged when a visitor to the museum became ill and fell over.

The remaining vases in the series are shown as part of a retrospective exhibition of Jongerius’ work, entitled Hella Jongerius – Misfit, which continues until 13 February 2011.

See all our stories about Hella Jongerius »

Product photographs are by Gerrit Schreurs Fotografie.
Exhibition photographs are by Lotte Stekelenburg.

Here are some more details from Jongerius:

300 Coloured Vases by Hella Jongerius
On display in the exhibition ‘Hella Jongerius – Misfit’ (13 November 2010 – 13 February 2011)

This autumn Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is presenting the first Dutch retrospective exhibition of the designer Hella Jongerius. The exhibition is a unique survey of her work and provides an insight into her working method, experiments and innovative products. One of the most recent is a group of three hundred Coloured Vases (series 3), which will be exhibited for the first time in Rotterdam.

The three series of Coloured Vases are experiments in colour, in which an existing vase is used as a ‘canvas’. The first two series consisted of forty and forty-two different porcelain vases, partially coated with paint from the industrial colour ranges RAL (2003) and NCS (2007). The third series is currently being produced in close collaboration with the glaze experts at Royal Tichelaar Makkum.

Minerals

Whereas the first two series employed industrial paints, this series uses a combination of a hundred historical mineral recipes and a hundred modern chemical glaze recipes. Jongerius refers to the latter as the ‘fast-food’ colours of the modern ceramics industry. The mineral recipes contain ingredients such as cadmium (red), iron (brown), selenium (yellow), copper (green), cobalt (blue) and manganese (purple). The historical and modern colours are applied in layers in a variety of patterns resulting in optical blending: a kind of Pointillism on porcelain. The combinations of colours and patterns and experiments with the firing temperature result in new colours. These are not flat like industrial colours but are irregular, layered and lively like the colours we know from paintings.

Jongerius believes that industry has focused too much on quantity and standardisation over the past few decades. Industry has created thousands of colours that are designed to look the same in all circumstances. These colours lack the irregularities that can provide a more beautiful visual experience such as those found in this series of Coloured Vases (series 3).Imperfection

Hella Jongerius (1963) is one of the most important designers of her generation. In the 1990s she introduced imperfections and individuality into the industrial manufacturing process. Jongerius believes that the quality of craftsmanship is not legible in perfect products but only in the ‘misfits’ that betray the process and the hand of the maker. Many of her works, such as the Nymphenburg plates and the Frog Table, indicate the potential to contemporary design of historical motifs and repeat decorations.

Misfit

The exhibition Misfit at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen includes industrial products, unique experiments and numerous sketch models. All the objects are arranged by colour because this plays such an important role in Jongerius’s work. The combinations of objects, including well- known designs such as B-set, Long Neck & Groove Bottles, Repeat fabrics, the Polder Sofa and IKEA vases, explore the themes inherent in Hella Jongerius’s work.

The exhibition has been made possible by a contribution from the Ahrend Fonds, administered by the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds. ‘Hella Jongerius – Misfit’ is part of the official programme of Holland Art Cities 2009-2010.

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Rotterdam Chair by Hella Jongerius	Office Pets by Hella Jongerius	Artificial flowers by Hella Jongerius

Dutch designers Peter van der Jagt, Erik Jan Kwakkel and Arnout Visser have developed a system of kitchen tiles that fit round corners to cover all surfaces of a kitchen without breaking up the grid of grouting.

Called DTILE, the product features various corner pieces and ties that integrate fixtures like plug holes and sockets.

The designers were unable to find a suitable manufacturer and eventually bought a tile factory themselves.

More about kitchens in our Food and Design report for Scholtès »

Here’s some more information from the designers:

DTILE.

We love tiles. And tile work.

But tile work is, strangely enough, not defined by tiles, but by its joint.

And we love this grid so much that we do not want to interrupt it.

For any reason. Not because one might need a function, or for the fact that the world is three-dimensional and tiles are not.

We have therefore created a series of functional tiles, integrating functionalities in tile work. This enables us to create grids that aren’t disturbed by a sink or a sink stopper, a tap, a cutting board, a wall socket, or a drawer. DTILE can incorporate any function in a tile – and we are open to suggestions to make our range of functional tiles even more versatile. Anything that’s required to tile the world…

And construction tiles. This enables any object or space to be covered with a tile blanket. Tiles are two dimensional, but the world is not. We have devised a system, which enables one to tile three dimensionally. One simply designs a space, object or function in a 15 by 15 by 15 grid, and the DTILE system allows one to cover it with a blanket of tiles.

The system enables the user and designer, whether being architect, stylist, contractor, investor, distributor or end users to design and build a unique, made to measure special tile environment.

We aim to the tile the world, and believe our system fits the requirements to do so. Not just kitchens or bathrooms. But also espresso machines, car washes, woodstoves, marketplaces and all we haven’t thought off. Jet.

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Tile Stove Project by Dick van Hoff	2b2 kitchen by Christoph Thetard	Vaisselier Système D kitchen by Matière A