Glas Italia, the Lombardy-based brand known for its long-time experience and passion for creating glass furnishings that standout for their sophistication, originality and intrinsic formal qualities, presents some of its latest pieces created in collaboration with the talent and vision of internationally renowned designers.
Glas Italia’s 2023 Collections of Glass Furnishings
The new creations, presented at the latest Milan Design Week, highlight the company’s dedication to research and innovative work to bring out the expressive possibilities of glass, surpassing the usual canons associated with it. These eye-catching contemporary pieces are capable of interacting with the other furniture and features of a given space offering surprising colors and the captivating effects of reflections and transparencies.
The new works by Patricia Urquiola are an example of this, with their cast glass in different iridescent or mirroring shades giving rise to optical illusions and perspective changes; or Nendo with his usual irony, playing with heterogeneous materials and creating containers, where the wood seems to be magically floating on the water.
The 2023 collection also showcases novelties with designs by Jean Nouvel, Piero Lissoni, and Yabu Pushelberg that articulate an elegance of aesthetic varieties.
Ami-Verre by Jean Nouve
Ami-Verre is a bookcase of great formal cleanliness, made from thermo-welded 10 mm. thick smoked or extralight glass, without any joint or extraneous structural element.A single modular piece that can be freely rotated and placed side by side, keeping the shelf alignment, and allowing for various and numerous configurations.
When commenting about the concept of the bookcase, the designer explained, ”Half distance? Split glass plates weave a powerful and transparent, solid, and virtual texture. Textures created within the space that skips lines, opening up spaces, whether placed near a wall or in the middle of a room. A servant sculpture, to exhibit floating objects between perpendicular reflections. Simplicity, precision, and set-up. Half presence? Ami verre.”
CC and Robotin by Patricia Urquiola
CC is a collection of low tables with a wooden structure completely covered by a mosaic of cast glass tiles in various and random colors. The tiles are shaped and positioned so that the surface reproduces the axonometric projection of a parallelepiped element.
Urquiola’s Robotin presents a series of low tables, consoles and storage furniture, completely created from a special double-sided mirrored glass, with a decorative pattern made from round transparent marks, simulating a perforated metal sheet. All the glass is tempered and UV bonded. The two doors are opened and closed with a push-pull system.
Maestrale by Piero Lissoni
The Maestrale mirrors are created from a single sheet of extralight or blue glass, slightly undulating at both ends and hand-silvered, simulating the fluttering of a drape or the surface of a liquid moved by delicate waves. The undulating reflected images are distorted in an unexpected way, whilst the perfectly flat area in the center guarantees a faithful reflection and a functional use. The mirrors, available in two sizes, can be freely hung in any direction.
Drift by Nendo
Drift, designed by Nendo, offers storage furniture with sliding doors made from tempered, UV bonded, acid-etched extra-clear glass. A black oak wooden box serving as a storage unit is partitioned and fixed to the furniture, so that one part remains inside and the other rests on the top. The effect obtained is that of a solid mass that seems to float in a liquid, partially emerging. The doors slide within natural anodized aluminum profiles. The glass base is silvered and radiates brightness within the furniture.
Ollie by Yabu Pushelberg
The Ollie low table is comprised of a 12 mm. extra-clear glass plate with polished shiny edge, curved 180° and chemically tempered. An “L” shaped element in double-sided mirror, positioned on the base, acts as a support for books and emphasizes the curved glass.
The bookcase, instead, is a freestanding totem with vertical back panel in double-sided extra clear mirror, laminated 10+10 mm. The shelves, bonded to the back panel, are made from 10 mm. extra-clear glass, glued at 45°, and in 180° curved glass. The mirroedr back panel creates a game of reflections, conveying an illusion of depth and continuity. The removeable base is covered in 10 mm extra-clear mirror.