Kengo Kuma Kuma, external designer
Kengo Kuma, renowned Japanese architect, scholar and author, established Kengo Kuma & Associates in 1990 after earning his degree at the University of Tokyo and further studies at Columbia University. His architectural office completed a series of highly acclaimed and award-winning projects, both in Japan and abroad. His collaboration with Lasvit enriches a philosophy that encompasses architecture, furniture design and now glassworks.
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Yabu Pushelberg Pushelberg, external designer
Founded in 1980 by George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg, Yabu Pushelberg is currently one of the most recognized design firms, world-renowned for its multidisciplinary approaches, appreciation of crafts and invention. With studios in Toronto and New York, covering projects in 16 countries, attention to detail and a spirit of exploration remain hallmarks of the firm.
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Maarten Baas Baas, external designer
Maarten Baas (1978) graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2002 with his Smoke series. Instantly, this burned furniture collection became world famous. The success continued by several solo shows highlighted by Clay Furniture in 2006 and Real Time in 2009. In 2009, Maarten Baas was awarded as “Designer of the Year” in Miami. His works are in major museum collections, such as Victoria & Albert, MoMa, Rijksmuseum and Les Arts Decoratifs.
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Campana Brothers Brothers, external designer
Founded in 1983 in Sao Paulo by brothers Fernando (born 1961) and Humberto (born 1953) Campana, Estudio Campana became famous for its furniture design and the creation of intriguing objects such as the Vermelha and Favela chairs and has grown to include Interior Design, Architecture, Landscaping, Scenography, Fashion, Artistic Partnerships and more. The Campanas work incorporates the idea of transformation, reinvention and the integration of craftsmanship in mass production. Giving preciousness to common materials carries not only the creativity in their design but also their very Brazilian characteristics – the colors, the mixtures, the creative chaos, the triumph of simple solutions. Campana pieces are included in the permanent collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the MoMa in New York, the Musée Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in Sao Paulo and also the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein. The brothers were honored with the Designer of the Year award in 2008 by Design Miami and the Designers of the Year Maison & Objet award in 2012. That same year they were selected for the Comité Colbert Prize in Paris, honored at Beijing Design Week, received the Order of Cultural Merit in Brasilia and were awarded the Order of Arts and Letters by the Minister of Culture in France. In 2013 they were listed among the top 100 most influential Brazilian personalities by Forbes magazine, and in 2014 Wallpaper* ranked them among the top 100 major players in design.
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deFORM , external designer
Studio deFORM was founded by Jakub Pollag and Vaclav Mlynar in 2011, during their studies at Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. Studio deFORM focuses on product design, furniture design, interior design, exhibition design and creative advertisement. Enjoying every challenge, they are willing to broaden their horizons with new interesting approaches they have never tried before. They seek to balance their work between commercial and independent creative projects.
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Maurizio Galante Galante, external designer
Maurizio Galante (born 1963) is one of the world's most respected haute couture fashion designers. His distinctive language is particularly valuable in contemporary high fashion and his creations are realized with profound respect for traditional craftsmanship, poetically combining an architect's indepth knowledge with the fine workmanship of the French Haute Couture atelier and the impeccable finish of Italian manufacturing.
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Eva Jiřičná Jiřičná, external designer
Eva Jiřičná (born 1939) is a world renowned Czech-born architect and designer who has lived in Great Britain since the late 1960s whilst working all over the world. She has won recognition for her interior design of luxury fashion boutiques and retail spaces in London and New York, and is widely regarded as one of the best in the world. Among her clients you can find Lloyds Insurance Group, the Rothschild family or Vaclav Havel to name but a few. Jiricna’s contribution to architecture and design has been recognized with many awards, including being made a Commander of the British Empire, elected as a Royal Academician by the Royal Academy of Arts, and inducted into the American Hall of Fame. She holds several honorary university doctorates and in 2003 she was elected as President of the Architectural Association in London. Jiricna’s projects are stylish, featuring mathematically pure forms and a holistic design approach. Her works can be seen in the world’s most prestigious design magazines.
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Petra Krausová Krausová, external designer
Petra Krausová (born 1986) searches for inspiration not only in materials and technology but also in the seemingly opposing topics of tradition and futurism. The Lasvit designer and co-founder of the new lifestyle brand Newintage focuses mainly on the design of furniture, products and futuristic concepts. Apart from stories and, at first sight, hidden ambiguities, her experience working for major designers and architects such as Tord Boontje, Michael Sodeau, Eva Jiricna and Bang&Olufsen is also reflected in her creations.
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Jitka Kamencová Skuhravá Kamencová Skuhravá, external designer
Jitka Kamencová Skuhravá (born 1976) is a renowned Czech glass artist and designer. She has been working with glass for over 20 years and often finds her inspiration in nature – using structures of birds' nests, spider webs, clusters of sea-grass, grass-blades, stalks or straw drifting on water or wind. Apart from design she is also active in the actual glass-making process, especially in engraving and grinding art glass solitaires.
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Libor Sošťák Sošťák, external designer
Libor Sošťák (born 1987) is a product designer born in the Czech Republic. While studying design at the Academy of Art, Architecture he also gained product design experience in Utrecht, Netherlands where he learned more about conceptual design. Libor has exhibited at many Czech and international exhibitions such as Designblok, Czech Grand Design awards, Maison-Objet, Milan design week or Vienna design week. Libor is interested in current trends and new technologies in product and interior design. Inspiration for chandeliers and lighting objects usually comes from the concept of interiors. He prefers to work on contemporary projects where he can use a simple concept or story for the glass installation. He always respects the charm of traditional Czech hand-blowing techniques and works with both hand-blown glass and cut crystal. His passion for contemporary technology gives his features a new dimension by adding cutting-edge engineering and technology.
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Lars Kemper and Peter Olah Kemper and Peter Olah, external designer
Just one look at their creations and it is immediately apparent that the duo of Lars Kemper (Germany) and Peter Olah (Slovakia) share a similar, passionate love of modern art and design. Since 2004 they have been combining their education and experience in an East-meets-West setting. Geographically this works perfectly as they are now both based right in between their own countries in the heart of Europe, the Czech Republic. As both are working outside their homelands, they laughingly refer to themselves as “Gastarbeiter” (guest workers).
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Lucie Koldová Koldová, external designer
Lucie Koldová (born 1983) is a product and furniture designer. She moved to Paris in 2009 and spent a year in Arik Levy’s studio. Simultaneously she continued to develop her own creations for various companies. Lucie Koldová established her own studio in Paris in 2012. She appreciates influences, inspiration and different cultures melting together in the city where she continues working for international clients.
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Koncern Design Studio Koncern Design Studio, external designer
Koncern Design Studio was founded in 2000 by two designers Jiri Pribyl and Martin Imrich. Studio is specialized in industrial design. Studio provides wider support in product development which starts with research in the branch, continues through the development and leads to the cooperation with clients.
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Arik Levy Levy, external designer
Arik Levy is an artist, technician, photographer, designer and filmmaker. Levy's skills are multi-disciplinary and his work can be seen in prestigious galleries and museums worldwide. Best known publicly for his sculptures – such as his signature Rock pieces - his installations, limited editions and design, Levy nevertheless feels that "the world is about people, not objects".
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Daniel Libeskind Libeskind, external designer
An international architect and designer, Daniel Libeskind, linking the emotion of architecture to involve philosophy, art, literature and music. He embraces the notion that buildings are crafted with perceptible human energy, addressing the greater cultural context in which they are built. Daniel Libeskind established his architectural studio in Berlin, Germany in 1989. His buildings include the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin and many others. Libeskind's work has been exhibited in major museums and galleries around the world. In February 2003, Daniel Libeskind was selected as the master planner for the World Trade Center redevelopment.
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Ross Lovegrove Lovegrove, external designer
Ross Lovegrove (born 1958) is a British designer and visionary whose work is considered to be at the very apex of stimulating a profound change in the physicality of our three dimensional world. Inspired by the logic and beauty of nature, his designs represent an intersection between technology, materials science and intelligent organic form, creating what many industrial leaders see as the new aesthetic expression for the 21st Century.
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MEJD studio studio, external designer
MEJD is product design brand founded in 2011 by Stefan Nosko and Katarina Belickova currently based in Bratislava / Slovakia. Their work is about seeking for new solutions and views at product design, creating an objects which beside functionality and aesthetics offer ideas and stories behind each of them. Their ambition is to create objects of ordinery life, inspired by this ordinarity but reaching a non ordinary results.
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Gabriela Náhlíková Náhlíková, external designer
Gabriela Náhlíková is a qualified architect, a practice that carries through to her custom creations. This designer freely moves through twentieth-century European art history, but with an understanding. She chooses motifs that are alluring to her, only to combine them, contradict them, correlate them or elaborate them in a multitude of ways. The classical design of her work together with optical projection merges into an unexpected form of ‘romantic functionalism’, which is also timeless in the impression it leaves. Among the essential virtues of her works is a soothing form, proven and verified by a culture opposed by rebelliously light playfulness, without the burden of convention, which in original connotations conjures up an image of modern curiosity.
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Nendo Nendo, external designer
Oki Sato – Nendo (born 1977) is the head of Nendo, a design studio based in Tokyo. His name is gaining momentum rapidly in the field of design. Oki Sato has received numerous accolades internationally. However, it has never been about fame and fortune of mass production for Nendo. Instead, their goal is to offer a fresh perspective combining the philosophy of eco-design and traditional processes of manufacturing inspired by daily life.
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Jakub Nepraš Nepraš, external designer
Jakub Nepraš (born 1981) is a visual artists combining two medias sculpture and animation. In his work Jakub is reflecting the fundamental changes of society and technology and also its dangers and estrangement from human beings and nature. He is trying in his work to re-appropriate a more original and purer way of life and to give natural, organic forms to contemporary society and technology.
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Jan Plecháč & Henry Wielgus Plecháč & Henry Wielgus, external designer
Jan Plecháč (born 1984) and Henry Wielgus (born 1982) met during their studies at AAAD (The Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague) where they first collaborated. After Jan Plechac exhibited his thesis work at Salone Satellite 2011, he gained much attention from gallery owners and well-known manufacturers. In 2012 Jan Plechac and Henry Wielgus founded studio Jan Plechac & Henry Wielgus.
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Rony Plesl Plesl, external designer
Rony Plesl (born 1965) is one of the leading Czech product designers. He is known mainly in the field of glass design but also for his original glass and stone sculptures. Plesl is also involved in interior design and drawing. His contemporary work focuses on uranium glass, the production of which has been reserved in only a few glass factories in Europe. Besides limited editions of glassware owned by Prince Albert of Monaco or the French actress Juliette Binoche, Rony Plesl also designs vases and decorative items as well factory produced glassware for leading manufacturers.
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René Roubíček Roubíček, external designer
René Roubíček (born 1922) is a Czech glass icon. Glass art as an independent art discipline was actually born in Czechoslovakia and it was first introduced to the world by Mr. Roubíček, over half a century ago. His spatial dimensional abstract compositions combining metal and glass caused a sensation at the 1958 Expo in Brussels Roubíček subsequently won the Grand Prix Expo award. His work is represented in many major galleries worldwide.
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Bořek Šípek Šípek, external designer
Borek Sipek (1949 - 2016) was a renowned Czech architect and designer. He focused on architecture and product design for international manufacturers and individual furniture manufacturing. At the request of Czech former president Václav Havel, he was appointed Court architect of the Prague Castle. His work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions and can be found in permanent collections of many museums worldwide.
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Lenka Trubačová Trubačová, external designer
Lenka Trubačová (born 1979) is focused on the tailor-made production of original author jewelry. An individual approach to the client and exclusivity of every piece with a unique scribe is characteristic in her work. Her first collaboration with Lasvit was in 2008 on the Lasvit Garden Gallery project. During the process of designing and modelling glass pieces Lenka Trubačová is inspired to a large degree by nature, its diverse details of geometrical and organic forms to a micro and macro degree. This creation is an opportunity for Lenka to realize her visions and designs, which are conceptually created for larger to monumental scales, but which, in the miniature form of jewelry, are not possible.
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Michael Young Young, external designer
In a career that spans little more than 15 years, British-born and Hong Kong based designer Michael Young (born 1966) has established himself as one of the world’s leading figures in his trade. Apart from his designs and their power to generate a vibrant but relaxed atmosphere, the uniqueness of his work also resides in the artist’s constant questioning of typologies and habits, combined with a passion for technology.
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Maxim Velčovský Velčovský, in–house designer
Maxim Velčovský completed his studies at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, in 2002 becoming co-founder of the Qubus design studio. He participated in ninety joint exhibitions and his works are included in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, The New Pinakothek in Munich, the Museum of Art and Design in Prague and the Design Museum in Lausanne. In 2007 he won Designer of the Year award. In 2011 became Art Director of Lasvit, also heading the Ceramics and Porcelain Atelier of the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.
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Katarína Kudějová Fulínová Kudějová Fulínová, in–house designer
Designer Katarína Kudějová Fulínová (born 1978) is used to dealing with original objects of everyday use and lifestyle design is her major field of work up-to-date. Her distinctive light fixtures and elegant glass tableware are instantly recognizable. The author works with pure shapes and lines, occasionally with added flower ornaments. Katarína further turns traditional procedures and shapes upside down, often breaking the rules of convention. Her frequent engineering approach is of a distinguished graphic character and corresponds to the requirement of absolute purity of shape and the modern penchant for cool, rational elegance. As an artist she successfully exhibited in Milan (Milan Furniture Fair) and Glasgow, Scotland. Her lighting collection ‘Plastico’ was also shortlisted for the Grand Prix of the London Interiors Fair in 2005.
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Táňa Dvořáková Dvořáková, in–house designer
Táňa Dvořáková (born 1983), one of Lasvit’s most prominent designers, focuses her creations on designer light fixtures for prestigious spaces in both private and public architecture. Tana Dvoraková takes her inspiration primarily from nature and the world of the Orient. Her work shows characteristics of jewelry-like decors and graceful curves, emerging either in the form of climbing plant stems or coiling snakes. One of her most successful designs was inspired by the fine aesthetics of tea leaves. A typical feature of her creations is the ‘invisible’ fittings giving the impression of a levitating light. Tana Dvorakova´s designs do not lack noble-mindedness or unique precision. She expresses herself in a modern style, although her creations maintain grace and charm. Her works can be seen in private residences and palaces, as well as theatres, hotels and casinos all over the world.
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Jana Růžičková Růžičková, in–house designer
Jana Růžičková (born 1982) joins Lasvit’s gifted group of artists with great anticipation. Her finished designs often comprise bits and pieces of all her favorite perceptions, working together as a condiment to her primarily rational and simple designs. Distance and cultural influences from all over the world weigh into Jana’s creations, with her works playing upon nature’s variety of colors and shapes. The artist believes open eyes and an open imagination set the stage for great concepts.
Her wide-ranging participation in design exhibitions consists of numerous appearances at Designblok and Designair events, as well as Palermo Design Week and Warsaw Design Week, among others.
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Luděk Hroch Hroch, in–house designer
Designer Luděk Hroch (born 1983) completed his vocational training in Nový Bor, the heartland of Czech glass-making tradition and craftsmanship. The artist focuses mainly on the design and creation of original lighting, although another area of his expertise is glass sculpture. He is equally comfortable with traditional and modern designs and his works often combine the two with fantastically original results. Sometimes his art leans towards the traditional style, at other times he follows the traditional structure of ornate castle chandeliers, contrasting them with contemporary design. Even though he frequently combines various styles, Luděk Hroch is a master of stylistic purity, which is the basis of his work.
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Věra Soukupová Soukupová, in–house designer
Věra Soukupová (born 1983) has been creating designs from glass for almost 15 years. She met with it during her studies at the technical glassmaking school in Nový Bor. During her studies she immediately tried out several traditional techniques working with glass, such as cutting, painting and creating stained glass. Working with glass and light captivated Věra so much that she started working on designing light fittings immediately after completing her studies. Since 2012 she has been creating lighting designs for Lasvit. The inspiration for her creations mainly comes from the boundless variations of nature and its phenomena. She also finds favor in plant structures, which are reflected in her designs.
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Mária Čulenová Hostinová Čulenová Hostinová, in–house designer
With a fondness for elements that resemble real life, the artist Mária Čulenová Hostinová (born 1981) enjoys working with different combinations of technicality and biomorphic aesthetics. Her interest in structures and textures of materials makes Maria an innovative artist with a lot to share. She enjoys using materials in unorthodox ways to create one-of-a-kind designs, and believes pureness must always follow the consequence and significance of creative work. Her design background includes work for Moravian glass works Kvetna, Nike Europeans and Futurista Universum, to name but a few. She also has extensive experience at international exhibitions. Some of Maria Hostinova Culenova’s awards and recognition include the Whirlpool Appliance Competition, Rosenthal Design Award and Bombay Sapphire Prize.
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Štěpán Gudev Gudev, in–house designer
Štěpán Gudev (born 1984) searches for solutions which follow context and research, as well as feelings. When working for Lasvit he is inspired by nature and its fundamental processes, modern art and design. Apart from working for Lasvit, he also spends time on interior design, which he studied in Milan. A strong influence was also studying design with Bořek Šípek and the subsequent work in his studio.
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Petra Dicková Dicková, in–house designer
After gaining her higher vocational and art education, designer Petra Dicková (born 1980) started her professional career as a designer at Crystalex, a renowned Czech glassworks, and within a few years became a leading designer. She mainly takes inspiration from natural organic forms, piling up or conveying meanings of the object through experiments with various colors. Fine-art glass is a creative accessory for her that co-exists in harmony with its environment, an attitude that is clearly reflected in her projects.Petra is a versatile artist who has worked across all branches of the glassmaking industry. Hand blowing, glass moulding, lampwork, glass painting and vitrification – this variety of glass-making technologies provides a solid base to build on. Numerous awards prove her creativity: at 18 years old she received the Grand Prix Junior Award and Grand Prix 2008 at the Mobitex International Fair in Brno.
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Linda Šormová Melichová Šormová Melichová, in–house designer
Linda Šormová Melichová (born 1980) is a designer with wonderful creative freedom and a sense for compositional order and focus on detail. She is a graduate of the design studio at the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague, to which she added further technical education in Milan, where her creations favored the use of fundamental simple shapes combined with elegant lines. In her earlier designed items for daily use, arising in collaboration with home design studios and in her current creations with Lasvit, they mirror the structural approach of the young designer. Impressive are their complex and well thought out glass compositions created by multiplying components of simple but accurate shapes.
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Wanda Valihrachová Valihrachová, in–house designer
Wanda Valihrachova (born 1990) is a dynamic soul that combines zeal for new technologies with passion for energetic ways of expression. Her chief interest are interactive installations that incite emotions through elemental nature-inspired shapes, progressive glass-shaping techniques and denial of traditional rigidity and symmetry. A recent discovery of hers is a combination of sculpture and videomapping. She studied Industrial design at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava and Product & Graphic Design at Ecole supérieure d´art et design in Saint-Etienne, France and joined Lasvit in 2014.
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Michaela Mertlová Mertlová, in–house designer
Michaela Mertlová graduated from Rony Plesl’s Glass studio of the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. After brief venture into product design during her internship at Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, she founded design studio Psychognis and joined Lasvit in early 2015. She has won several awards, including Stanislav Libenský and Prague Design Week awards, and her works have been exhibited throughout Europe. Her major sources of inspiration are stories of any form. She finds sci-fi, comic and urban storylines to be the most intriguing, yet she doesn’t fall short to incorporate the real-life narratives as well.
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Denisa Lisík Lukáčová Lisík Lukáčová, in–house designer
Denisa Lisík Lukáčová (born 1987) is a graduate of Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia, with international experience from internships at Geneva University of Art and Design and Tjep Studio in Amsterdam. She joined Lasvit after winning the international Talent Design 2012 Award. Her inspirations mostly build on natural motives, which she skillfully captures in a great variety of materials and technological solutions. In most of her light sculptures, she combines glass with metal elements – material that complements glass perfectly and allows for greater shape variability.
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Ari Mahardhika Mahardhika, in–house designer
Ari Mahardhika (born 1979) is a Hong Kong based Indonesian designer. Having experience in many design fields such as exhibition design, architectural design, and graphic design has allowed him to understand the rapidly changing requirements in the design Industry. Adding to that, his Bachelor of Architecture Engineering background has been aiding him in developing his glass sculpture design to best suit the clients need for their houses and buildings. He also has completed trainings in glass making and lighting design in Nový Bor to enhance his knowledge and skills for Lasvit.
“I love design and photography. In design, nature is my main inspiration. Adding natural elements in an artificial environment creates a balance life. As a photographer I appreciate lights. Glass transforms lights in such unique ways that gives you an exciting experience.”
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Daniel Jaček Jaček, in–house designer
Daniel Jaček (born 1977) divides his attentions between free experimental methods and applied art.
His work has been influenced by his notion of technologies, and particularly abstract manifestations of Modernism. He focuses on the fundamental substance of a form to reach a crystal clear shape, and that is one of the reasons why architecture provides an ideal milieu for his designs.
On the other hand, he is also capable of mediating a classical notion and designing light fixtures as luxuriant decorative accessories in harmony with the style of the space.
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Kamila Jačková Jačková, in–house designer
Designer Kamila Jačková (born 1977) found the experience of engraving to be the most ornamental state-of-the-art technique she had ever known. It has been her love ever since. She finds that the delicate filigree engravings add another dimension to her abstract, often flower-inspired décor. Her passion evolved to embrace the designing and creation of chandeliers and light objects to enhance the ambiance of a particular setting. Kamila finds the combination of glass and light to be an element of expression that welcomes her to new and fresh experiences. In addition to the glass arts, the artist enjoys graphics, ceramics, computer graphics and jewellery making. Furthermore, her passion of growing flowers, especially orchids, often serves as enduring inspiration for her handcrafted glass works.
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