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Spacial Magazine

Hidden Symbols

By: Maxim Velčovský, Based on Manifest of Luxury by Carl Laszlo Photo: Studio JAFR
#Essays
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“Lux­u­ry is free­dom. Lux­u­ry is avail­able to every­one, wealth is not. Lux­u­ry means own­ing what one wants to own and giv­ing up every­thing one should own. Lux­u­ry makes every­one their own mas­ter. Lux­u­ry is a piece of old vel­vet as the entire pos­ses­sion, lux­u­ry is to live in 17 emp­ty rooms with a sin­gle icon and one small dog, lux­u­ry is not to own con­sumer goods, lux­u­ry is to be very rich or very poor in gen­er­al well-being. Lux­u­ry is made exclu­sive­ly of desires and lux­u­ry is to kill one’s desires. Lux­u­ry is to say what no one wants to talk about.”
CARL LASZLO, Man­i­fest of Lux­u­ry, 1973
In addi­tion to stan­dard­ized solu­tions, we are also able of pro­duc­ing cus­tom glass for archi­tec­ture. Our bespoke crys­tal glass solu­tions are avail­able in var­i­ous col­ors, tex­tures and sizes.

For me, every per­son­al space is a cer­tain form of a shop win­dow, regard­less of how large a space we occu­py. Vin­cent Van Gogh paint­ed the most beau­ti­ful works in a small ate­lier and Dio­genes formed the most essen­tial thoughts in a bar­rel. The ter­ri­to­ries we chose for liv­ing can be com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent. It’s like choos­ing an apart­ment where we decid­ed to live for a while. We select it based on its size, loca­tion, neigh­bor­hood or per­haps the view from the win­dow. Our spaces are bizarre cab­i­nets of curiosi­ties with which we fill entire lives and that tell more about us than we can say ourselves.

I’m a child of the Cold War and lived my child­hood dur­ing Com­mu­nism and my ado­les­cence in ear­ly Cap­i­tal­ism. Pri­or to the Vel­vet Rev­o­lu­tion of 1989, it was near­ly impos­si­ble to trav­el. One grew up behind the Iron Cur­tain and the inter­net didn’t yet exist. What we had was cen­sored, deformed news from the world, books and peo­ple who told sto­ries of what they saw and expe­ri­ence abroad. Their sto­ries crys­tal­lized my imag­i­na­tion. Var­i­ous trav­el­ers brought back items from dis­tant lands and they became symbols.

An orig­i­nal set of crys­tal com­po­nents with a high­ly aes­thet­ic set of pre­de­fined pat­terns. That’s the sto­ry of Crys­tal Wall, a new and unique­ly ver­sa­tile instal­la­tion that bridges the bound­ary between applied and orig­i­nal art. The com­po­nents are for­ti­fied with either high­ly pol­ished steel, a very strong inter­nal rod struc­ture, or are mount­ed onto a sup­port­ing struc­ture to cre­ate the same effect.

You have no idea what a lux­u­ry it was in those times to receive a can of Coca-Cola. It was the taste of the West and every cool kid in the East col­lect­ed cans with dif­fer­ent cov­ers that formed sort of a puz­zle image about the world beyond the cur­tain in their small room.

“Lux­u­ry is free­dom. Lux­u­ry con­fronts the infi­nite self-aware­ness with the infe­ri­or or supe­ri­or feel­ings of oth­ers. Lux­u­ry makes a per­son inde­pen­dent, brave and hon­est. Lux­u­ry meets with every­thing nat­ur­al and human with the great­est cour­tesy. Lux­u­ry pro­tects against envy and false van­i­ty, arous­es one‘s desires and encour­ages thoughts of inde­pen­dence and small ven­tures. Lux­u­ry reju­ve­nates, pro­tects health and sup­ports diges­tion. Lux­u­ry helps us resent greedy mis­sion­ar­ies and stuffy assas­sins.”
CARL LASZLO, Man­i­fest of Lux­u­ry, 1973
His­tor­i­cal­ly, a wall was near­ly always con­struct­ed to pro­tect things inside and there­fore its pri­ma­ry func­tion was to sep­a­rate peo­ple from one anoth­er. How­ev­er, Lasvit Crys­tal Wall offers the prac­ti­cal ver­sa­til­i­ty of a unique archi­tec­tur­al tool as an extra bonus. The indi­vid­ual com­po­nents are avail­able in sil­ver, gold, cop­per, bronze and graphite finish.

I saved this col­lec­tion and nev­er threw it out. The great­est lux­u­ry is to pro­tect mean­ing­less things with per­son­al val­ue and tran­scen­dence, as they some­times man­age to even move an Iron Curtain.
As a child, I spent time with my par­ents in many art ate­liers and real­ized there are many cre­ative expres­sions of the same time peri­od and each of us is able to pick the one they pre­fer. And so I began col­lect­ing design items and, lat­er, art. In the case of design, I was fas­ci­nat­ed by its ser­i­al pro­duc­tion and democ­ra­cy, in case of arte­facts, their uniqueness.

In each city that I vis­it, I stop at a local junk shop that usu­al­ly hides trea­sures from the past. It’s a mix of prod­ucts and objects that, for some rea­son, stopped being pro­duced, although they are fre­quent­ly very beau­ti­ful. I admire these things for their authen­tic­i­ty and new­ly-acquired unique­ness. I col­lect them and use them for inspi­ra­tion because nobody cares to pro­duce them these days.

From time immemo­r­i­al, peo­ple have need­ed to sur­round them­selves with objects that become sym­bols. These are items that absorb our emo­tions and expe­ri­ences in order to mir­ror them for years to come. Every time we pass them, glance upon them or fleet­ing­ly touch them, our mind imme­di­ate­ly recalls a spe­cif­ic mem­o­ry. We are the only ones who rec­og­nize this asso­ci­a­tion, bound with the object through a secret treaty that only exists through our connection.

Anoth­er type of glass for archi­tec­ture solu­tions is inspired by tex­tile tapes­tries and cur­tains, which have always been con­sid­ered mon­u­men­tal achieve­ments in tra­di­tion­al arti­san crafts. The Tapes­try and Cur­tain Col­lec­tion draws heav­i­ly on this lega­cy of fine crafts­man­ship, play­ing with glass in new and unex­pect­ed ways. Orig­i­nal­ly, tapes­tries turned sim­ple tex­tiles into sto­ry­telling pieces of art that often dec­o­rat­ed the walls of palaces or cas­tles. The LASVIT Tapes­try is a con­tem­po­rary take on an abstract glass mural.

For oth­ers, these items only rep­re­sent the irreg­u­lar struc­tures of sev­er­al cen­time­ters of rock sed­i­ment, but for us they con­tain a sto­ry from a jour­ney, remind us of meet­ing friends or trans­port us to a favorite place. The most ordi­nary piece of a rock found at the right time at the right place sud­den­ly becomes a gem, the car­ri­er of mem­o­ries, an amulet from our trip, the cor­pus delic­ti of our exis­tence. That stone is capa­ble of men­tal­ly tele­port­ing us thou­sands of kilo­me­ters away. There are no two iden­ti­cal stones in this world and our per­son­al sto­ry fills these items with an addi­tion­al layer.

“Lux­u­ry fights for rar­i­ty and every­thing spe­cial: for expen­sive books, for unique pieces in all fields, for ex lib­ris, mono­grams, por­traits, for mag­ic of sig­na­tures, for enchant­ment, for rit­u­als, for objects of sig­nif­i­cance, for rare stones and peo­ple, for joy, desires, aus­ter­i­ties and hand­writ­ten let­ters. Lux­u­ry is the con­stant train­ing of death, eter­nal farewell. Lux­u­ry means accept­ing one‘s des­tiny with­out sur­ren­der­ing to it. Lux­u­ry is to do only what one con­sid­ers right. Lux­u­ry is freedom.”
CARL LASZLO, Man­i­fest of Lux­u­ry, 1973
The Tapes­try and Cur­tain Col­lec­tion offers three types of struc­tures – ver­ti­cal stripes, drap­ery and grid – in crys­tal clear glass that can be com­bined with met­al detail­ing and fin­ished in brushed stain­less steel, pol­ished stain­less steel, or light gold fin­ish­ing. The lay­er­ing ren­ders a del­i­cate, under­stat­ed look ready to com­ple­ment a wide range of interiors.

I like the short text by the Hun­gar­i­an psy­cho­an­a­lyst and art col­lec­tor Carl Laz­lo from 1973, where he cap­tures the true essence of free­dom. Not inci­den­tal­ly, it is named the Man­i­fest of Lux­u­ry. The fre­quent­ly overused word lux­u­ry is vul­gar­ized and has dicey mean­ings. At times, lux­u­ry is the mag­ic for­mu­la for snobs who can­not express the rea­son they admire a cer­tain thing. That alone is a rather sad image. But if you admit this fact, it’s actu­al­ly a very lux­u­ri­ous epiphany and there is noth­ing to be ashamed of. The mean­ing of the word lux­u­ry changes, mutat­ing with us over the course of a life­time and we learn to explore and under­stand it. And because lux­u­ry is con­nect­ed with the con­tin­u­um of time and deci­sions, this is even log­i­cal. The great­est lux­u­ry is freedom…

 

 


Max­im Velčovský com­plet­ed his stud­ies at the Acad­e­my of Arts, Archi­tec­ture and Design in Prague and in 2002 he became co-founder of the Qubus design stu­dio. He par­tic­i­pat­ed in over nine­ty joint exhi­bi­tions and his works are, for instance, includ­ed in the col­lec­tions of the Vic­to­ria & Albert Muse­um in Lon­don, The New Pinakothek in Munich, the Muse­um of Art and Design in Prague, or the Design Muse­um in Lau­sanne. In 2007, he won the Czech Design­er of the Year award. In 2011, while also head­ing the Ceram­ics and Porce­lain Ate­lier of the Acad­e­my of Arts, Archi­tec­ture and Design in Prague, Velčovský became Art Direc­tor of LASVIT. Based on his 10 years of achieve­ments in LASVIT, Max­im has been named the win­ner of Inte­ri­or Design’s Best of Year Awards 2020 in the “Man­u­fac­tur­er: Cre­ative Direc­tor” category.

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In addition to standardized solutions, we are also able of producing custom glass for architecture. Our bespoke crystal glass solutions are available in various colors, textures and sizes.
An original set of crystal components with a highly aesthetic set of predefined patterns. That’s the story of Crystal Wall, a new and uniquely versatile installation that bridges the boundary between applied and original art. The components are fortified with either highly polished steel, a very strong internal rod structure, or are mounted onto a supporting structure to create the same effect.
Historically, a wall was nearly always constructed to protect things inside and therefore its primary function was to separate people from one another. However, Lasvit Crystal Wall offers the practical versatility of a unique architectural tool as an extra bonus. The individual components are available in silver, gold, copper, bronze and graphite finish.
Another type of glass for architecture solutions is inspired by textile tapestries and curtains, which have always been considered monumental achievements in traditional artisan crafts. The Tapestry and Curtain Collection draws heavily on this legacy of fine craftsmanship, playing with glass in new and unexpected ways. Originally, tapestries turned simple textiles into storytelling pieces of art that often decorated the walls of palaces or castles. The LASVIT Tapestry is a contemporary take on an abstract glass mural.
The Tapestry and Curtain Collection offers three types of structures – vertical stripes, drapery and grid – in crystal clear glass that can be combined with metal detailing and finished in brushed stainless steel, polished stainless steel, or light gold finishing. The layering renders a delicate, understated look ready to complement a wide range of interiors.

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Centrum Bořislavka

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Diver in Lotte World Tower Seoul (video)

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Volcano collection by Maxim Velčovský

Frozen Collection by Maxim Velčovský

Muster Cup collection by Maxim Velčovský

Neogothic collection by Maxim Velčovský

Memento Mori by Maxim Velčovský

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