This year of design exhibitions in the Kvalitář gallery is dedicated to an area, where Czech design has a very stable reputation – glass. It is not only the great conditions of the sandy subsoil of Northern Bohemia, the tradition and the skill of glass craftsmanship, but most of all it is creative thinking and the hard work of Czech designers, thanks to which we have such a good name in this commodity.
Brothers, as well as the designer duo Filip and Lukáš Houdkovi, are an excellent example of a family-owned company called Glassbrothers, which is situated in the very heart of the glass district in Nový Bor. Their focus on the traditional glass medium is substantially combined with an emphasis on innovative modern technologies that move their work to the exclusive sphere of both applied and free art. The majority of their work occupies light realization, since it is just the glass, that is the best source of light so far, compared to all other materials.
Older of brothers – Filip is a well-known personality among Czech developers of glass objects. The specifics of his creation is the effort combination of the metal and glass as smoothly as possible, to form a comprehensively functioning whole. It seeks to achieve this synthesis by means of precise technological processing and consequently efficient functional usability, which should be a condition of design. Lukáš’s work goes more into an innovative area influenced by more free art and experimental modification of shapes. What both brothers, besides their primary focus on glassmaking, combines and at the same time offers a supportive theme for this show is their long-term obsession and passion for cycling. The exhibition for the Kvalitář gallery will therefore focus mainly on the theme of exploring the specific morphology of bicycles and their fragments. Bicycle history is mainly determined by aerodynamic ergonomics, which shaped the resulting ideal shape of the frames into an almost idealized form of the road bike.
For a certain peak of the design icon, we could consider a Favorite sport bike, which forms the basis of the exhibition – the chandelier Armstrong. This massive lighting consists of seven original frames of bycicles from different stages of their origin. Another piece using real fragments bycicle is Francesco Moser, which is made up of several “aries” curved handlebars in one tangled glass object. Historically, the technique of the Bohemian birch, which we are like the Baroque masters, is historically significant glass power. This technique is represented by the work Cipollini (road bike type) and the crystallic solitaire Dear Marcel, recreated in bicycle fork.
The exhibition “obssesion” would have two different openings. The presentation of the Houdek brothers proves that the Czech design, crowned by the contemporary technologies of processing the traditional glass material, perfectly illustrates its elegance and, above all, timelessness.