• Home
  • Topics
    • Editorial
    • Leaders
    • Around the World
    • Lasvit World of Design
    • Essays
    • Guides
  • About
  • Contact
  • Buy magazine
  • Lasvit store
  • Home
  • Topics
    • Editorial
    • Leaders
    • Around the World
    • Lasvit World of Design
    • Essays
    • Guides
  • About
  • Contact
  • Buy magazine
  • Lasvit store
Spacial Magazine

The Elusive

By: Mariana Kubištová Photo: Richard Bakeš, archive
#Leaders
Share on:

Eclec­tic, post­mod­ern, mag­i­cal, cos­mopoli­tan, erot­ic. World–famous archi­tect, design­er and glass­mak­er. These are just some of the many adjec­tives that are asso­ci­at­ed with the name Bořek Šípek. The range of their mean­ings shows how dif­fi­cult it is to describe Šípek’s vast body of work. He con­sid­ered him­self pri­mar­i­ly an archi­tect and described exper­i­men­ta­tion as the dri­ving force behind his work.

The life of Bořek Šípek was the sto­ry of an artist who, being hard­work­ing and coura­geous, rose from hum­ble begin­nings to inter­na­tion­al fame. In par­tic­u­lar, he did not lack the courage to cross bor­ders – both the geo­graph­i­cal ones, when he emi­grat­ed from Czecho­slo­va­kia to West Ger­many at the age of 19, and 15 years lat­er moved to the Nether­lands; and the ones that could lim­it his work.

Rel­a­tive­ly ear­ly on, his tal­ent and enthu­si­asm brought him his first pro­fes­sion­al suc­cess­es. One of his ear­ly awards in archi­tec­ture was the Ger­man Archi­tec­ture Prize in 1983. Šípek received it for a house called Glashaus that he designed for his sis­ter Stanisla­va. A num­ber of oth­er archi­tec­tur­al assign­ments fol­lowed short­ly. Instead of the anonymi­ty of mod­ern archi­tec­tur­al trends, Šípek always opt­ed for an indi­vid­ual approach. 

This was the way he worked on both large build­ings and inte­ri­or designs which he car­ried out all over the world. Whether design­ing the Komat­su Gin­za depart­ment store in Tokyo, the Ško­da Auto pavil­ion in Wolfs­burg, or the inte­ri­ors of the Schoe­baloo chain of shops and Karl Lager­feld bou­tiques, Šípek was always suc­cess­ful in find­ing the right bal­ance between lux­u­ry and func­tion­al­i­ty, between the inti­mate and the public.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive

“I want peo­ple to fall in love also with the objects that sur­round them, to real­ly feel their pres­ence as a phys­i­cal chal­lenge. I’m only inter­est­ed in mak­ing objects with which we expe­ri­ence spe­cial moments, even on an ordi­nary day.”

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
The Galaxy Luminia chan­de­lier was designed by Bořek Šípek for Lasvit in 2013. Seem­ing­ly dis­parate dec­o­ra­tive com­po­nents are con­nect­ed in a play­ful assem­blage of forms, mate­ri­als and stories.

He also had a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to put his expe­ri­ence with “great” archi­tec­ture and inte­ri­or design to good use in a place with count­less his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ences, sym­bols of pow­er and grandeur – Prague Cas­tle. In 1990, Václav Hav­el, the Czech Pres­i­dent at that time, appoint­ed him the chief archi­tect of his offi­cial res­i­dence. It is clear­ly evi­dent now how good a deci­sion this was. Ful­ly aware of rec­i­p­ro­cal rela­tions between inter­de­pen­dent objects, Bořek Šípek man­aged to add both larg­er and small­er archi­tec­tur­al ele­ments and fur­nish­ings such as chairs, car­pets and light­ing fix­tures to the exist­ing archi­tec­ture, which is itself a mix­ture of dif­fer­ent his­tor­i­cal styles, with­out dis­turb­ing the spir­it of the place. 

His designs accu­rate­ly cap­ture what is espe­cial­ly impor­tant in places like this – a sense of mag­nif­i­cence which, how­ev­er, is not exclu­sive. Etched in the mem­o­ry of Czech cit­i­zens is, above all, the office of Václav Hav­el from which he deliv­ered his pres­i­den­tial speech­es; but Šípek also designed the entrance to the Office of the Pres­i­dent, the inte­ri­or of the Prague Cas­tle Pic­ture Gallery and many oth­er elements.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive

Function is the beginning, not the objective

“If you don’t know how to start anew, you end up being in a rut. I don’t like to be restrict­ed. By any­one and by any­thing. I like to try new things, new mate­ri­als, new prin­ci­ples, new meth­ods.” The approach to cre­ation that Bořek Šípek applied in all areas of his activ­i­ty is par­tic­u­lar­ly evi­dent in his prod­uct design. His unique abil­i­ty to han­dle dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als and employ func­tions of objects has attract­ed the atten­tion of many renowned com­pa­nies, with which he sub­se­quent­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed. The first to approach him, in the mid-1980s, was the Ital­ian com­pa­ny Dri­ade, for which Šípek was design­ing var­i­ous objects until his untime­ly death in 2016. 

Dri­ade pro­vid­ed him with media sup­port and cre­at­ed a cat­a­logue for him, fea­tur­ing exclu­sive col­lec­tions pro­duced in lim­it­ed quan­ti­ties. After­wards, he was approached by oth­er well-known man­u­fac­tur­ers, for exam­ple Alessi, Rosen­thal and Vit­ra. In spite of their extra­or­di­nary and play­ful shapes, his pieces of fur­ni­ture as well as glass, porce­lain and met­al table­ware and oth­er objects are high­ly func­tion­al and prac­ti­cal. In the 1980s, Šípek’s skills earned him an indis­putable place among lead­ing design­ers, such as Philippe Star­ck, Ettore Sottsass, Ron Arad and Oscar Tus­quets, who were also his friends.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
Work­ing in the Aje­to glass­works, Šípek achieved a unique form of expres­sion that was char­ac­ter­is­tic of his work – chip­ping, carv­ing, cut­ting, attach­ing, fus­ing, twist­ing or alter­ing shapes by means of heat. He cre­at­ed works using the hands and expe­ri­ence of the best glass­mak­ers right in the glass­works and with­out any prepara­to­ry sketches.

Šípek’s objects often have a sym­bol­ic mean­ing and their shapes and names refer to past per­son­al expe­ri­ences. For instance, the shape of the Bam­bi chair, named after Šípek’s first wife, the dancer Bam­bi Uden, alludes to the seat­ed posi­tion of a dancer with legs apart. It is also a sug­ges­tion of the erot­ic aspect of Šípek’s works, and it is clear he did not per­ceive eroti­cism only in its most obvi­ous sense, but rather as a rela­tion­ship between man and object. 

“I want peo­ple to fall in love also with the objects that sur­round them, to real­ly feel their pres­ence as a phys­i­cal chal­lenge. I’m only inter­est­ed in mak­ing objects with which we expe­ri­ence spe­cial moments, even on an ordi­nary day.” The names of many of the objects also hint at real-life sto­ries – they often sug­gest friends and col­leagues of Bořek Šípek, or his­tor­i­cal figures.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
In his life­time, Bořek Šípek real­ized a num­ber of impor­tant archi­tec­tur­al projects around the world. He imple­ment­ed many of them, but some remained only in draft. The sec­ond group includes, among oth­ers, the project study for the Doha Bank Build­ing in Qatar from 2004.

“The essence of archi­tec­ture is not objec­tive truth, but cap­ti­vat­ing radiance.”

The joy of creation

Bořek Šípek’s work is full of joy, which is also expe­ri­enced by the view­er. That is why he also pre­ferred Bud­dhism to the Euro­pean Chris­t­ian tra­di­tion. While Jesus suf­fers on the cross, the Bud­dha is calm and smil­ing, embody­ing the state of men­tal and emo­tion­al bal­ance. There is no suf­fer­ing in Šípek’s work, on the con­trary – his art is a joy­ful part of life. What gave Bořek Šípek the great­est plea­sure and also respite was his activ­i­ty as a glassmaker.

“If you don’t know how to start anew, you end up being in a rut. I don’t like to be restrict­ed. By any­one and by any­thing. I like to try new things, new mate­ri­als, new prin­ci­ples, new methods.”

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
In 1982, Šípek built the house called Glashaus in Ham­burg. A del­i­cate glass struc­ture – a green­house – con­ceals the actu­al dwelling. Like many of Šípek’s oth­er works, the house is a col­lage – a com­bi­na­tion of dif­fer­ent approach­es and materials.

He was intro­duced to glass by the most com­pe­tent. After the untime­ly death of his par­ents, the famous Czech glass­mak­er René Roubíček became Šípek’s guardian. He and his wife Miluše Roubíčková, also a glass artist, had a for­ma­tive influ­ence on Šípek’s attrac­tion to glass, which first man­i­fest­ed itself in a series of designs in the 1980s and was ful­ly brought to fruition with the estab­lish­ment of the Aje­to glassworks. 

Bořek Šípek found­ed it in 1991, togeth­er with the mas­ter glass­mak­er Petr Novot­ný and the spe­cial­ist in tech­nol­o­gy Libor Fafala, so that he could cre­ate elab­o­rate­ly dec­o­rat­ed glass vas­es, cups, bowls and chan­de­liers that would be excit­ing to look at and inter­est­ing to touch. He want­ed to make them using the hands and expe­ri­ence of the best glass­mak­ers, right in the glass­works, with­out any prepara­to­ry sketch­es. In the Aje­to glass­works, use­ful glass objects were brought into exis­tence that were intend­ed to be enjoyed by their owners.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
Up until Václav Havel’s pass­ing in 2011, he and Bořek Šípek were the best of friends. Šípek was able to for­mu­late Havel’s gen­er­al thoughts into the so-called “Mod­ern Baroque” style which respect­ed his­to­ry while reflect­ing con­tem­po­rary emo­tions. Šípek pre­ma­ture­ly died of can­cer a mere five years after Hav­el at the age of 66.

“I want­ed my things to be func­tion­al, not to be bor­ing, not to lose their attrac­tion eas­i­ly, and I want­ed the user to slow­ly and grad­u­al­ly find unob­vi­ous qual­i­ties, lit­tle pecu­liar­i­ties and pleas­ant sur­pris­es in them.” Ivan Kubela, the artist’s chief glass­mak­er, recalls how unortho­dox Šípek’s man­age­ment was. “He was a man of extremes, either it would fall or it wouldn’t fall, it would break… When some­thing did fall and break, we took it, put it back togeth­er and it was perfect.”

Bořek Šípek and Václav Hav­el were unit­ed not only by their col­lab­o­ra­tion at Prague Cas­tle, but also by friend­ship. For Šípek’s 55th birth­day, Hav­el gave him a draw­ing of a vase that was sup­posed to char­ac­ter­ize him. “Dear Bořek, my pro­pos­al for an elu­sive vase,” added Havel.

Today, in the attic of the Aje­to glass­works in the North Bohemi­an vil­lage of Lin­da­va, there is an archive of glass objects that were cre­at­ed there dur­ing the peri­od of more than 25 years under Šípek’s direc­tion. On dis­play are Šípek’s orig­i­nal glass pieces, designs for Dri­ade or Rosen­thal, as well as the Czech the­atre award of Thalia. The glass­works is cur­rent­ly man­aged by Lasvit, for which Šípek designed the Galaxy Lumi­na series of chan­de­liers, com­bin­ing his inter­est in his­to­ry with his pas­sion for blown glass, and the Pra­to di Fiori light­ing fix­ture inspired by a flow­er­ing moun­tain meadow.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
Sources: Dag­mar Sedlická, Fenomén Šípek, Mladá Fronta, 2008 Alexan­der von Veg­e­sack, Bořek Šípek: die Nähe der Ferne Architek­tur-design, Vit­ra Design Muse­um, 1992 Mile­na Lamarová and Mel Byars, Borek Sipek: The near­ness of far — archi­tec­ture and design, Stelt­man and Muse­um of Dec­o­ra­tive Arts in Prague, 1993

“Design is not a path to a goal, but an art of mov­ing the goal forward.”

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
The trans­par­ent Isot­ta bowl, which Šípek designed for the Ital­ian brand Dri­ade in 1991, was inspired by unbri­dled fan­ta­sy and the Baroque. It is dec­o­rat­ed by coloured leaves.

The Aje­to glass­works also pro­duced a small col­lec­tion of vas­es designed by Václav Hav­el. Hav­el, orig­i­nal­ly a play­wright, inge­nious­ly used the Czech mean­ing of Šípek’s sur­name (šípek = dog rose) to express how he per­ceived the per­son­al­i­ty of Bořek Šípek. His draw­ing, enti­tled The Elu­sive Vase, depict­ed the twig of prick­ly wild rose stud­ded with thorns. 

Cre­at­ed on the basis of the draw­ing, the vase made of Czech lead crys­tal glass has a sim­i­lar shape – large thorns cov­er the entire sur­face of the ves­sel in the shape of a cylin­der. In reca­pit­u­lat­ing many aspects of Šípek’s work and life, it becomes clear how fit­ting the adjec­tive “elu­sive” that Václav Hav­el used was. Nonethe­less, what is also evi­dent is that Bořek Šípek’s oeu­vre actu­al­ly defies all adjectives.

 


Czech archi­tect and design­er Bořek Šípek (1949–2016) is world-renowned artists. He col­lab­o­rat­ed with well-known com­pa­nies such as Alessi, Dri­ade, Lasvit, Leit­ner, Rosen­thal, Scarabas, Sèvres, Stelt­man, Vit­ra, etc. and received many inter­na­tion­al awards. Between 1990 and 2003 he served as chief archi­tect of Prague Cas­tle and in 1991, he co-found­ed the Aje­to glass­works. Bořek Šípek’s works of art are part of the col­lec­tions of pres­ti­gious muse­ums around the world and belong among the favorite collector’s objects.

Scroll to top ↑
← PS Sending Flowers
Dare to Dream →
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
The Galaxy Luminia chandelier was designed by Bořek Šípek for Lasvit in 2013. Seemingly disparate decorative components are connected in a playful assemblage of forms, materials and stories.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
Working in the Ajeto glassworks, Šípek achieved a unique form of expression that was characteristic of his work – chipping, carving, cutting, attaching, fusing, twisting or altering shapes by means of heat. He created works using the hands and experience of the best glassmakers right in the glassworks and without any preparatory sketches.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
In his lifetime, Bořek Šípek realized a number of important architectural projects around the world. He implemented many of them, but some remained only in draft. The second group includes, among others, the project study for the Doha Bank Building in Qatar from 2004.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
In 1982, Šípek built the house called Glashaus in Hamburg. A delicate glass structure – a greenhouse – conceals the actual dwelling. Like many of Šípek’s other works, the house is a collage – a combination of different approaches and materials.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
Up until Václav Havel’s passing in 2011, he and Bořek Šípek were the best of friends. Šípek was able to formulate Havel’s general thoughts into the so-called “Modern Baroque” style which respected history while reflecting contemporary emotions. Šípek prematurely died of cancer a mere five years after Havel at the age of 66.
Bořek Šípek and Václav Havel were united not only by their collaboration at Prague Castle, but also by friendship. For Šípek’s 55th birthday, Havel gave him a drawing of a vase that was supposed to characterize him. “Dear Bořek, my proposal for an elusive vase,” added Havel.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
Sources: Dagmar Sedlická, Fenomén Šípek, Mladá Fronta, 2008 Alexander von Vegesack, Bořek Šípek: die Nähe der Ferne Architektur-design, Vitra Design Museum, 1992 Milena Lamarová and Mel Byars, Borek Sipek: The nearness of far - architecture and design, Steltman and Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, 1993
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: The Elusive
The transparent Isotta bowl, which Šípek designed for the Italian brand Driade in 1991, was inspired by unbridled fantasy and the Baroque. It is decorated by coloured leaves.

Discover more

Galaxy Luminia

Similar articles

The Elusive

Shadow Players

Hand-Made Experiments

Getting To Know The Campanas

Back to the Roots

Caress And Torment The Soul

Popular articles

Oasis of Light and Sound

Monumentality across Media and Sizes

In the Middle of Golden Sands

Nature In The Sky

Getting To Know The Campanas

Identity Creator

Download latest issue
Spacial Magazine
Lasvit

© 2023 Spacial Magazine

Privacy policy

LASVIT s.r.o. Komunardů 894/32, Holešovice, 170 00 Prague 7, Czech republic

Website by: Sharp Objects

Around the WorldEditorialEssaysGuidesLasvit World of DesignLeaders