Philipp Weber: How Glass Plays
Awarded designer Philipp Weber’s trumpet-inspired glassblowing pipe allows creating multi-chamber glass vases.
In design project A Strange Symphony, German-born designer Philipp Weber brought to life a new trumpet-inspired glassblowing pipe. Manipulating the pipe allowed Weber and and Liège-based glass blower Christophe Genard to influence the inner shape of a piece of glass, and to create several chambers instead of one.
Two years later, the On Colours collection emerged from the experimental production technique. Integrating different hue combinations within the creation of multi-chamber glass vases, Weber was awarded a 2015 Bavarian State Prize for Young Designers. With recent exhibitions during Salone del Mobile in Milan and at Shanghai Museum of Glass, he is an up-and-coming European talent to watch.
Philipp Weber works on emotional qualities of production. He questions the significance of today’s craftsmanship and the human relation to a material and its processing. Weber began experimenting with glassblowing tools during his studies, and continued after his graduation from Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands in 2012.
Glassblower Christophe Genard was one of the glassblowers invited for CIAV-Meisenthal / Glass Is Tomorrow workshops in 2014. •
Video
A Strange Symphony (Short Cut) from Philipp Weber on Vimeo.
Main image
Philipp Weber: On Colours.
Glassblowing: Christophe Genard
Assistant Glassblowers: Emil Kovač, David Belïen, Jessica Homrich
Cold Work: Heikko Schulze Höing
Production: Glasmuseum Leerdam
Glass Is Tomorrow is a European network, which aims at establishing more fluid exchange of knowledge and competencies between glass and design professionals in the north, south, east and west of Europe. Glass Is Tomorrow is initiated and organized by Brussels-based creative agency Pro Materia, which also publishes TLmagazine with Paris-based publishing house Bookstorming.
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