Pause the Flow
By: Eva Slunečková
Photo: Hana Knížová
The Thinniest glassware
It is as if there is only a thin sheet of paper between you and the liquid. It is as if you are holding the water right in your palm, without getting wet. In reality, only a single millime¬tre of glass from Northern Bohemia with an artfully flowing form separates you from the beverage within the Circle glass. “My inten¬tion was to create glassware that turns con¬sumption into a ritual and disrupts people’s daily habits. Even something as ordinary and automatic as drinking water,” designer Milena Kling explains to me in her Berlin studio.
Original imprints of the Artist
Milena first visited glassworks during her work stay in Tokyo. Until then, while studying architecture and product design in London, Zurich, and Berlin, she had worked with all sorts of materials except glass. It was in Japan where she became fascinated by the delicate, malleable and flexible substance and there was no turning back. Since 2012, she has been tirelessly pushing its boundaries. She shapes glass into unconventional forms and combines it with unexpected materials such as soft copper. As a result of her expertise, metal leaves rhythmic imprints on the glass, penetrating the transparent crystal-clear material, or tinting its surface red. Milena Kling’s trademark is originality and irregularity. Each piece is unique, displaying the unmistakable imprint of human hands.
Czech collaboration
Thanks to her previous experience with experimenting and developing limited series of products, the designer was able to infuse the collection for Lasvit with an ample dose of ease and fineness. In collaboration with the glassmakers, she devised a method allowing to repeat the results without the glass losing the attractiveness of handcraft and the irregularities associated with it. “I wanted to approach the rich history of Czech glassmaking from a different position… to make the glasses while maintaining the connection to the heritage, but also address their creation in a very contemporary way… to change the way how we usually feel about glass.”
The future of glass collections
Milena Kling’s approach refers to the traditions that are typical of glassmaking, but also to the use of technology in the future. Considering that it is the very first collection of glasses the designer has ever created, this synergy is all the more remarkable. The story of Circles, however, does not end here – the designer is currently working with master glassmakers on expanding the collection further. “Glassmaking is magical, capable of capturing one gesture, which marks the very exact first moment of the blowing,” says Milena, pouring water into one of the Circle glasses on her table.
