![In Conversation With Glas Italia In Conversation With Glas Italia](https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-hi9nbuups9/images/stencil/2560x2560/uploaded_images/header-glas-italia-int.jpg?t=1699618972)
In Conversation With Glas Italia
If you want to adorn your home with a piece of glass that has both a dreamlike beauty as well as a thoughtful, practical use, and with designer credentials to boot; it’s heritage Italian brand Glas Italia all the way.
Celebrated worldwide for tempting glass into the most beguiling styles, shapes, surfaces, and shades, the brand pushes glass design beyond the realms of imagination, creating exquisite furniture and decorative objects that seem to transcend the rules of gravity, materiality and the colour spectrum.
Shimmer Table | Shop Now
Partnering with the biggest names in contemporary design – from 20th century legends such as Ettore Sottsass, Nanda Vigo and Nendo to modern-day heroes Patricia Urquiola, Inga Sempé, Yabu Pushelberg, Jean Novel, and Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec – Glas Italia’s collection is composed of glass explored through a diverse array of creative lenses.
Are these pieces functional glass objects, or otherworldly high art? Are they suitable for practical use, or testaments to artistic ingenuity? Should they be wrapped in cotton wool and saved for future generations, or brought into the sunlight for all to see? And just what is it about the material that’s so timelessly mesmeric? Join us as we sit down with the brand’s co-owners Alessandra and Lorenzo Arosio to talk all things luxury glass, and Glas Italia.
If you want to adorn your home with a piece of glass that has both a dreamlike beauty as well as a thoughtful, practical use, and with designer credentials to boot; it’s heritage Italian brand Glas Italia all the way.
Celebrated worldwide for tempting glass into the most beguiling styles, shapes, surfaces, and shades, the brand pushes glass design beyond the realms of imagination, creating exquisite furniture and decorative objects that seem to transcend the rules of gravity, materiality and the colour spectrum.
Partnering with the biggest names in contemporary design – from 20th century legends such as Ettore Sottsass, Nanda Vigo and Nendo to modern-day heroes Patricia Urquiola, Inga Sempé, Yabu Pushelberg, Jean Novel, and Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec – Glas Italia’s collection is composed of glass explored through a diverse array of creative lenses.
Are these pieces functional glass objects, or otherworldly high art? Are they suitable for practical use, or testaments to artistic ingenuity? Should they be wrapped in cotton wool and saved for future generations, or brought into the sunlight for all to see? And just what is it about the material that’s so timelessly mesmeric? Join us as we sit down with the brand’s co-owners Alessandra and Lorenzo Arosio to talk all things luxury glass, and Glas Italia.
Why is glass such an endlessly alluring material?
Glass is beguiling because it is light, transparent, elegant, and pure, but also versatile in how many possibilities there are to process and decorate it. During the manufacturing process, a transparent slab of glass is transformed to become something new, unexpected. Every new project becomes a kind of challenge: how can we give a piece of glass a new and unusual shape? How do we transform a delicate material into something tough and resistant? How can we embellish the surface and maintain a sense of lightness and transparency at the same time? Sometimes you come across a surprising result while trying to reach a something completely different. There is something charming and captivating in the way glass unveils its potential.
How are your designs created to impact the spaces they sit in?
Each Glas Italia piece has its own identity and conveys a particular mood. Some pieces are transparent, pure, ethereal, and discreetly coexist with the rest of the environment in which they are placed. They fill up the room with light. Others are more decorative, incorporating pigments and materials, reflecting images around. These fill up the room with colours and shapes and give the room a new character, interpreting the different moods of those who live in that space.
Each of your products has its own unique aesthetic – how would you define Glas Italia’s overall style?
Glas Italia has an eclectic style but at the same time a very well-defined identity – in a sense, its eclectic character is the very foundation of its identity. Our collection is wide and varied, with pieces created by leading designers worldwide. Each designer has their own origin, culture, taste, experience and sensitivity towards the material of glass. They are of different origins, with different cultures, different life experiences and different ways of reading reality. This is reflected in the pieces they design and is the richness of the Glas Italia collection. Every Glas Italia piece mirrors the character of its designer. What unites so many styles is the determination to create beautiful and functional objects, and the desire to create the unexpected.
Simoon Collection by Patricia Urquiola | Shop Now
Is there a concept that unites the collections?
The first concept uniting the Glas Italia collection is of course the material: glass. Although each piece is unique and tells us something about the character and identity of its designer, all of them retain a unifying Glas Italia identity. Designers are drawn to us because we disobey the rules, we can create “brave” pieces together.
Glas Italia | Shop Now
What stands out from the 2023 collection?
This is very difficult to answer. Every piece of the 2023 collection has a strong identity, and as we know the starting point and motivation behind each design, and the efforts to reach the desired object, it is hard to make a choice. Every piece has a story to tell. The mirror Maestrale by Piero Lissoni is an example of how Glas Italia defies the rules. Advanced technical solutions led to new, unanticipated results, a mirror bending in alternating curves, concave and convex, to create the effect of a wrinkled fabric carried away by the Mistral wind. Robotin, the new collection designed by Patricia Urquiola, was born from the desire to continue exploring the possibilities of glass, going beyond the most common aesthetic canons associated with the material. The collection is made of glass with mirrored finishes given by a metal deposit. The metal deposit is shaped by simulating a perforated sheet metal with exaggerated holes, creating a transparent yet mirroring effect.
Glas Italia's designs are becoming more and more avant-garde – what motivates you to explore the frontiers of glass design?
Glas Italia was founded in 1972 as part of our wider family business, which has been manufacturing glass since the beginning of the 20th century. Each new project is built upon knowledge we have acquired over decades, as well as our cutting-edge equipment and technology. Our extensive experience of glass processing techniques and innovations is the starting point of every piece. We see each new project as a challenge – we want to overcome of the confines of what is possible.
All the Invisible by Glas Italia
The new collection is dotted with bold colour – what affect does such vividity have on the home?
The Glas Italia collection has a variety of glass surface finishes, from the fully transparent to coloured surfaces that reflect, to surfaces stained with a soft, velvet finish, to the very colourful. While transparency recalls light and purity, colour adds life to the spaces they live in. The colours can be soft, melting with the surrounding pieces of furniture already present in the home, or they can be strong, with a disrupting effect.
Did you consider trends when creating the 2023 collection?
When creating a new collection, the designer is free to give expression to any idea or concept regardless of current trends. It is only in this way, freed from existing patterns, that innovative objects are created.
What are the benefits of being a family run business?
Thanks to long family tradition, expertise passes down from generation to generation and is constantly enriched. The company is part of the family and the family is part of the business – our unity streamlines our decision-making processes.
Are there any family business values that have been passed down in time?
The principles that have been communicated through the generations are those of manufacturers who were born and grew up in Brianza, who had a strong attachment to their roots but a broad openness towards the world. Curiosity, tenacity, consistency are characteristics that distinguish the family, and which deeply influence the company.
Glas Italia HQ
Glas Italia HQ
What has Glas Italia's 50+ years of experience taught the company?
Our breadth of experience reminds us every day that there is always something new to discover – a new finish, a new technical solution – that difficulties must be overcome and can become opportunities, and that there is always the chance to go beyond the limits. The ‘finish line’ can be a new starting point.
What is the family vision for the next 50 years?
50 years is a long time! But if we imagine the Glas Italia of the future, we can envisage a company committed to research in every direction, be it technological, functional or aesthetic, and striving for the pursuit of beauty.