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Spacial Magazine

Hand-Made Experiments

By: Eva Slunečková Photo: Zuzana Veselá
#Leaders
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This year marks 10 years since Jan Plecháč start­ed exper­i­ment­ing with shapes, sur­faces and mate­ri­als and tak­ing them to the lim­it. Jan doesn’t care whether he uses glass, met­al or tex­tiles; the idea itself dic­tates what mate­r­i­al might best suit the giv­en project. We vis­it­ed him in his Prague stu­dio and talked about his sud­den pas­sion for frag­ile glass and about what drove him to design the Hid­den Light collection.

Ten years ago, you launched your first light­ing col­lec­tion with Lasvit – Nev­erend­ing Glo­ry. Do you remem­ber what went into design­ing it?

I clear­ly remem­ber the moment when Lasvit’s Art Direc­tor Max­im Velčovský approached us to col­lab­o­rate. It was bare­ly a year after me and Hen­ry Wiel­gus start­ed the stu­dio, I was liv­ing in Lon­don at the time, and was just on a vis­it to Prague to take part in the Design­blok fes­ti­val. I had just installed our booth and was a mere stone’s throw away from Lasvit’s presentation. 

I remem­ber meet­ing him in the hall­way and show­ing him our fresh­ly set up instal­la­tion. He liked our work so much he imme­di­ate­ly offered to col­lab­o­rate. The only small prob­lem was that we had less than ten days to turn in our first design. (laughs)

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments

Well, they do say a genius design some­times takes less than a minute to crys­tal­lize. But how did you man­age to design a best­seller in just under ten days?

Hon­est­ly, it was ridicu­lous. We worked day and night on it, and final­ly came up with five con­cepts. Max­im vis­it­ed us at our stu­dio, and we left Nev­erend­ing Glo­ry for last, because we were sure it had real poten­tial. And we were right, as he was imme­di­ate­ly inter­est­ed in it.

At that time, you already achieved suc­cess with the design you made as part of your grad­u­ate the­sis – you were ren­der­ing icon­ic Mod­ernist fur­ni­ture in wire con­tours, and even devel­oped the project for Cap­pelli­ni… And we find this same ten­den­cy in Nev­erend­ing Glo­ry as well.

In Nev­erend­ing Glo­ry, we orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed to update the clas­si­cal form of a can­dle-chan­de­lier. We liked the idea of retain­ing only its out­line, of mak­ing it sym­bol­ic. I think it was me who came up with the idea, and Hen­ry then pro­posed we use the shapes of par­tic­u­lar chan­de­liers which hang in the world’s most famous theaters. 

We were fas­ci­nat­ed by that sin­gu­lar moment of awe – when­ev­er you walk into the La Scala in Milan, the Palais Gar­nier in Paris or New York City’s Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera, it is always the exquis­ite chan­de­lier which first takes one’s breath away. So, we start­ed play­ing around with their icon­ic shapes and rotat­ing them on their axis. And it was Max­im who brought our atten­tion to the Estates The­ater in Prague. We found out it was the only the­ater which nev­er had to be rebuilt due to being dam­aged in a fire. It even host­ed Wolf­gang Amadeus Mozart who, in 1787, pre­miered his famous opera Don Gio­van­ni there.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
The light and lamp of the Hid­den Light col­lec­tion were designed by Jan Plecháč and design­er Hen­ry Wiel­gus four years ago. Since then, new tech­nolo­gies have made it pos­si­ble to ren­der their ideas in repeat­able pro­duc­tion. Success!

Since then, the Nev­erend­ing Glo­ry col­lec­tion has become a great hit. It hangs in projects all over the world, for exam­ple also in the homes of singer Justin Bieber and actress Salma Hayek. What does it take for a design to become successful?

At first sight, it has to scream: “this is it”. The mag­ic of Nev­erend­ing Glo­ry con­sists in that it is sim­ply dif­fer­ent from all oth­er designs.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments

GLASS IS A TRUE MYSTERY

What did you find sur­pris­ing about work­ing with glass? Nev­erend­ing Glo­ry was, after all, the first project where you used the material…

In the case of this col­lec­tion, we start­ed out think­ing the instal­la­tions would end up being much big­ger… But once in the glass­works, we found out that our ideas were sim­ply not com­men­su­rate with real­i­ty. The glass­mak­ing tech­nique did not allow us to make the large shapes we had orig­i­nal­ly envi­sioned. It was our first time work­ing with glass, and our inex­pe­ri­ence in fact helped us design it, as some­times know­ing too much can lim­it the imag­i­na­tion even before you sketch it out on paper. 

Being green is great! After we launched the Nev­erend­ing Glo­ry col­lec­tion, our design­er col­leagues, who have often worked with glass much longer, came to us and said that only some­one who has nev­er before worked with glass could have come up with such a design. There is def­i­nite­ly some­thing to that! (laughs)

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
Glass and its var­i­ous forms are among the great pas­sions of Jan Plecháč. His stu­dio in Prague’s Vršovice dis­trict is packed with sketch­es, mod­els and frag­ments of new, up-and-com­ing collections.

This is also true for your new col­lec­tion Hid­den Light, which you had been devel­op­ing over a num­ber of years. What turned out to be most chal­leng­ing about it?

We made the pro­to­type very quick­ly and both me and Hen­ry real­ly liked the way it looked. The biggest chal­lenge for us was devel­op­ing the ini­tial con­cept into a read­i­ly repeat­able prod­uct. I’m very grate­ful to the devel­op­ers and glass­work­ers who stayed with us every step of the way and didn’t give up despite the many obsta­cles and challenges. 

I think Hid­den Light and Nev­erend­ing Glo­ry are very much relat­ed, in an uncon­scious sort of way. We were orig­i­nal­ly approached by Lasvit’s Art Direc­tor for my grad­u­ate work with wired fur­ni­ture, and he asked us whether we might not wish to blow some­thing into it too. And although Nev­erend­ing Glo­ry ulti­mate­ly went a dif­fer­ent way, we sort of came full cir­cle with Hid­den Light.

“Get­ting a good idea is a ques­tion of the right moment.”

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments

How long have you been work­ing on Hid­den Light?

I dis­tinct­ly remem­ber dri­ving back from Nový Bor with Hen­ry – we were think­ing about the new design we had just pre­sent­ed at Lasvit, but the reac­tion was rather luke­warm. They were these sheet-met­al struc­tures which poured glass. So, we were leav­ing a lit­tle disappointed.

But we start­ed brain­storm­ing in the car: What if the tube wasn’t sheet-met­al, but wire, and the glass poured out­wards in all direc­tions? In those two hours of dri­ving from Nový Bor to Prague, we devel­oped the new idea, and at home we sketched it out. We couldn’t wait to see how it would real­ly look, so we didn’t waste any time and bought a met­al net out of which we made the first con­struc­tion. Then we went to the glass­works and let the glass­work­ers blow glass into it. We knew right away that this was the way to go.

“It was obvi­ous Hid­den Light and Nev­erend­ing Glo­ry had tremen­dous poten­tial from the very first, because they were total­ly dif­fer­ent from any­thing else.”

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments

What was the Art Director’s reaction?

We were just mov­ing between stu­dios at the time, so we were meet­ing at Henry’s cot­tage. We arranged a meet­ing with Max­im and [Lasvit pro­duc­er] Mark Effmert in this pic­turesque rur­al land­scape, and the lights shone so won­der­ful­ly it was like a fairy tale. It took us a long time to iron out the entire process of blow­ing the glass into a met­al mount with­out hav­ing the mate­ri­als stick togeth­er. It proved to be a big challenge. 

We final­ly devel­oped a spe­cial met­al mould which would make the glass­work­ers’ job eas­i­er, so they would no longer had to fret whether the met­al form would decou­ple from the glass at the very end. The form we start­ed using was actu­al­ly a 3D scan of the orig­i­nal, hand­made one, and even includes all its lit­tle incon­sis­ten­cies. In this way, Hid­den Light is also a com­men­tary on the post-indus­tri­al zeitgeist.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments

The human touch of a crafts­man is impor­tant to your projects, isn’t it?

I enjoy the ten­sion between indus­tri­al and man­u­al labor, so even though my projects might be pro­duced in large series, I always like to leave them with a touch of craft – whether it is in their struc­ture, mate­r­i­al or by includ­ing small mis­takes… It makes the object much more inter­est­ing and adds a human dimension.

What is the most impor­tant prin­ci­ple of Hid­den Light?

It was real­ly impor­tant for us to keep the light source opaque and the light­bulb invis­i­ble. This lat­er also gen­er­at­ed the name. It makes the entire object tru­ly mag­i­cal, while remain­ing func­tion­al and giv­ing light. It’s always a great chal­lenge to com­bine these two dimen­sions just right.

“Lasvit opened my eyes to the ways of glass.”

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
This year marks the 10th anniver­sary of Jan Plecháč and Hen­ry Wiel­gus cre­at­ing the light­ing col­lec­tion Nev­erend­ing Glo­ry. It was among the first of Lasvit’s seri­al­ly-made light­ing col­lec­tions, and remains one of the brand’s best­sellers, loved all over the world. The La Scala and Palais Gar­nier mod­els are among the most popular.

ON MY OWN

You usu­al­ly show your clients only the fin­ished prod­uct, and nev­er the pre­lim­i­nary sketch­es. Why is that?

I don’t like to wait. I pre­fer to com­plete the idea myself and only then start mak­ing com­pro­mis­es. It usu­al­ly takes a lot of ener­gy and mon­ey, and some­times doesn’t pay off, but it makes the most sense to me. (laughs)

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
Hid­den Light con­tains a num­ber of mean­ings: it is a sym­bol of post-indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion with a strong state­ment on the glass­mak­ing craft and its unique poten­tial, as well as sym­bol­iz­ing the spark which is able to over­come all obstacles.

While Hid­den Light was being devel­oped, the world was going through a pan­dem­ic and both you and Hen­ry had new­borns. You decid­ed to take a sab­bat­i­cal from work, and now both of you work on your own. What did work­ing in a team give you?

Work­ing with Hen­ry, I real­ized just how impor­tant it is for any design to have a sto­ry. The pro­pos­al basi­cal­ly starts out with it, and grad­u­al­ly finds its way to its final form. In the ini­tial phas­es of the design, nei­ther the shape nor mate­ri­als are at all impor­tant to me.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments

While Hen­ry rad­i­cal­ly changed pro­fes­sion, you stayed in the design field, ren­o­vat­ed your own stu­dio and today work under your own brand.

2018 was a break­ing point for me. My sec­ond child was born, and after the last hur­ried years – going from one col­lab­o­ra­tive project to anoth­er, con­stant­ly mov­ing between Milan, Lon­don and Prague – I decid­ed it was time for some fam­i­ly time. I final­ly end­ed up tak­ing a two-year break and was work­ing on set­ting up my own space in an old med­i­cine fac­to­ry in my favorite neigh­bor­hood of Vršovice. Noth­ing much has changed apart from that, and nowa­days I go head­long into projects with as much fer­vor as ever before. (laughs)

 


Jan Plecháč’s career as a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary design­er start­ed in 2011 at the pre­sen­ta­tion of young tal­ent at the Salone Satel­lite in Milan. His project was so good that it gained the atten­tion of inter­na­tion­al gal­lerists, insti­tu­tions and fur­ni­ture mak­ers, and imme­di­ate­ly cat­a­pult­ed him among the elite of prod­uct design. Since then, he has been design­ing for world-renown brands such as Cap­pelli­ni, Menu, La Chance or Lasvit, mak­ing col­lec­tor items which strad­dle the fields of art and design for gal­leries like Mint Shop and Rossana Orlan­di, as well as pure­ly bespoke prod­ucts for many pri­vate clients. His eclec­tic port­fo­lio shows Plecháč’s exper­i­men­tal approach – whether it is prod­uct or inte­ri­or design, it is always the over­all con­cept which is most impor­tant for him, and aes­thet­ics only come sec­ond. His work often shows the signs of crafts­man­ship. He has been part of the Lasvit fam­i­ly since 2012.

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← Beauty is a Relative Thing
Oasis of Light and Sound →
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
The light and lamp of the Hidden Light collection were designed by Jan Plecháč and designer Henry Wielgus four years ago. Since then, new technologies have made it possible to render their ideas in repeatable production. Success!
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
Glass and its various forms are among the great passions of Jan Plecháč. His studio in Prague’s Vršovice district is packed with sketches, models and fragments of new, up-and-coming collections.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Jan Plecháč and Henry Wielgus creating the lighting collection Neverending Glory. It was among the first of Lasvit’s serially-made lighting collections, and remains one of the brand’s bestsellers, loved all over the world. The La Scala and Palais Garnier models are among the most popular.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments
Hidden Light contains a number of meanings: it is a symbol of post-industrial production with a strong statement on the glassmaking craft and its unique potential, as well as symbolizing the spark which is able to overcome all obstacles.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Hand-Made Experiments

Discover more

Hidden Light

Neverending Glory La Scala

Neverending Glory Bolshoi

Neverending Glory Metropolitan Opera by Jan Plecháč & Henry Wielgus

Neverending Glory Palais Garnier

Neverending Glory Prague Estate

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